Hooplah.Org

Breaking news – apparently me having completed a lowly Certification in Computer Information Systems isn’t good enough for most office jobs in the area, but oh the irony, it is also too good for any cashier/retail positions! Yep, you heard me right – ever hear stories of people who were told they were “too qualified” for a job and thus did not receive it? Those stories be true! And I know first hand now.

I just crashed and burned that the local Truestar hardware store while inquiring about a cashier position. However, I was hopeful at first – 2 very nice ladies helped me up front: they got me set up with an application in hand and pointed me in the direction of the Service Desk to talk to someone named Paul. One lady with red hair, who I didn’t catch the name of, even said rather cheerfully to me “Why hello gorgeous, how are you doing today?” That actually upped my motivation by alot, and we had a small funny conversation about how you needed to be a little bit crazy to work there. I responded “Oh, yeah, I can do crazy,” with a big smile on my face, laughing a little bit at myself.

I paced around the back of the store waiting patiently. I did notice someone who I thought was probably Paul (as well as the guy on the phone in the back room – he used to be on the volunteer fire and rescue and was the one who “rescued” me when I was 9 after stepping through my mother’s underground greenhouse – he had carried me from my house to my parent’s car to take me to the hospital) but the store was busy and everyone seemed tied up. Eventually, after waiting a 1/2 hour or so, I decided I would leave and come back at a better time. I made eye contact with the same “hello gorgeous” redhead, and she gave me a look like “well?” All I could say was that he seemed busy, and asked if I could drop off the application up front. She slightly shook her head, and told me to follow her. She said she liked my personality, that I was cheerful (even though I had not spoken to her that much) and that they needed more of that around there. She spoke to Paul for me, let him know I was there, and she showed me to what apparently was the employee break room to wait for when Paul had a free moment. It was like 5-10 minutes till he entered the room. I made sure to stand up, shake his hand, and introduce myself as soon as he came in.

We had a semi decent talk (I have come to accept that I will *always* be a terminally hopeless interview subject, so by that standard, “semi decent” fits my performance) until he started to talk some about my education history. He noted I had completed the CIS Certification, and asked me if I was still looking for a job in that field. He went on to explain that it wouldn’t really be in the company’s best interest to hire and train someone who would leave shortly after for another job opportunity – though his exact version of it wasn’t as rude as that, but it was basically the message he was sending. And, honestly, as much as I didn’t like to hear that, I can respect that concern. He also mentioned how it was great that I did cashiering work, but that the methods used at their store were completely different than what was used at Food Lion or Giant, and that there’d be a much bigger learning curve. So, not only did my education hurt me, but my past job experience didn’t impress him. And to top if all of, the position they were hiring for is a cashier job with *phone* work.

Sigh. He’d told me he’d pass on my application to the “real” person who hires and that they’d give me a call. But I’m not going to hold my breath for that to happen.

Thinking logically, one might wonder why I would put my certification information on the application. Well… at the time, I thought it would help me more than hurt me – so they could see I devoted time and energy to something and accomplished a goal. I thought it would help beef out the credibility that my employment history lacks. And, also – aren’t applications for employment a legal or binding document or something like that? I’ve always read that while you can pick and choose what information to put on a resume, *not* putting all information on an actual employment form is illegal. Or maybe I’ve just been reading crazy employment guides? Fuck, maybe that’s why no one’s hired me – I’ve been following the suggestions of crack heads all along.

But, anyway.

After waiting 2 weeks to do so, I finally got to talk to Alan the other night. I was really interested to see how the move went, hear about the apartment and how him and Jennifer were doing, etc. While I could probably assume everything went fine – what could really go wrong? – I still wanted to know for sure. Since, surprisingly, I found myself worrying about it… though that might be because I still remember how horribly his move to Radford went. I just wanted to hear that everything was ok and that they were happy so that I could be happy for them.

At first when I was talking to Alan, he seemed like he really didn’t want to talk to me. When I told him I had been trying to catch him for a while, he responded with “whatcha want?” A bit taken back, I said oh, I just wanted to see how the move went and everything. He replied simply, “it went well,” which was a little more vague than what I was expecting. He then added “I got married.” I was *so* surprised by that and so happy for them at the same time I almost couldn’t think of what to say. He had told me he and Jennifer were planning on getting married soon, but hell, Alan and I had said that about each other for the 4 years we were together but it never came to be. So, I guess, some part of me didn’t think it would happen for them just because of that. When I finally caught myself I said “OMG CONGRADULATIONS” (in caps, just like that, and I believe misspelled it the same way) and I went on to say it was awesome, and asked how it felt (though by that point I was expecting another vague answer and was planning on wrapping up the conversation after that) but the next few IMs I got said something along the lines of how Alan was actually at the computer now, as Jennifer had been the one typing for the first part of the conversation.

I guess it’s to be expected that Jennifer wouldn’t like me and it’d probably a little naive of myself to think that she might not. I can probably guess Matt would respond the same way to Alan, and I sure as hell know I despised Tabitha 3 years ago. Though, still, it did catch me off guard a bit to get the teensy taste of how much she probably does dislike me from the conversation “we” had, even if she was just filling in for Alan during it. I dunno. In my head I still envision one day of being able to meet her, and even though the “logical” side of me knows that won’t ever happen, it’s still something I like to think about as a possibility. I’ve even thought alot about the idea of inviting Alan and Jennifer to Matt and I’s wedding. Course, that would only be possible if it happened before they moved out of the country. But, anyway…

At the time, since I did notice the “tone” her responses had had, I thought then would be a good opportunity to apologize for responding to one of her posts in her livejournal. I didn’t say anything bad in the responses I made, not at all – but in retrospect I felt as though I should of known better to tread on her intellectual property. Like I didn’t have that “right” to invade her private space, even if I was just trying to say something nice. So, I did apologize for it – and at first they had no clue what I was talking about. I went on to explain the where and the why and the how, and it turns out she didn’t even know that it was me that had made the response. Then, Alan asked a question that threw me off guard – “Did I tell you she had a livejournal?” I knew *exactly* what that question was getting at, and could just picture them both sitting there and saying “WTF?! Is she stalking Jennifer, how does she know about her livejournal?!” complete with wrinkled up faces in disgust while glaring at the computer screen, waiting for my response. Ugh. So, I did what any normal person with a horrible nervous disorder would do – I frantically tried to think clearly and say of how I came to know of it’s existence which inevitably made me look even more “guilty” by just how frantic and freaked out I must of sounded. At the time I *knew* I had had a conversation with Alan about the damn thing (I remembered later that when him and I had talked about it, it turned into a mini conversation about the point of private entries on the internet, etc), I just could not for the life of me remember anything specific that would help jog his memory to it at the time. If he had at least remembered it wouldn’t of been so bad, but he apparently didn’t. I was a dear in the headlights who in the end got run the fuck over.

While she was nearby and listening I wanted to badly to at least try to make a good impression and make an apology for something I felt I didn’t have the right to do (respond to her post). In the end all I accomplished was adding “stalker” and “freak” to my already full resume of “husband’s first girlfriend who broke his heart the FUCKING WHORE.” Yippie, great work Chrisy.

Time is going by upsetting fast. Even though I’ve been in the same “state” for the past 3 years (the anniversary of which is sometime in the first week of May) I’m now to the point where each passing day applies just a little more weight on my will. It’s become harder for me to be and stay positive about anything, harder for me to think of the next week or even the next day without cringing, and simply out of the question for me to take my thoughts off my regular crutches (axolotls, online games, this website) for more than a few seconds without willingly sacrificing myself to my viciously analytical tendencies.

I hate for this to sound depressive, but I don’t know how to help that; depressive is what it is. I’m not sure how to stay chipper when I’m quickly getting to the point where my only option will be to put myself into a position where I’ll become as sick as I used to be since I can’t seem to get hired by anyone, let alone even find a nearby job opening, for the sort of work that would prevent that from happening. I’m thisclose to throwing in the towel and giving up the notion that I’ll ever find a way to stay in control of my body instead of it controlling me. All the ways I’ve found to try to make that happen have seemingly turned out to be unavailable to me.

If it isn’t obvious, the job fair last Monday did not go well. I arrived around 5 or 6PM and filled out the same survey I did 2 years ago (age range, gender, currently employed, desired job type, distance willing to travel, etc) all with little to no discomfort aside from some heavy traffic and running into the branches of a tree in the parking lot. The job fair had the same layout as the previous one so I figured a lap around the place would be worthwhile for picking out which booths I would be snipe-diving later – mainly because that’s probably the only way I’d be brave enough to approach a table full of grinning strangers expecting me to sell myself to them.

In the end I only spoke to one person (who was hiring for a call center that took surveys – he said to be at their location on Thursday if I was interested in the position. I did not go) because I quickly realized that even though the paper had listed quite a few companies that I had seen offering office-like jobs in the paper, and even in some cases their actual booths had eye catching phrases like “data entry” and “file clerk”, when I walked up to the table and read the information of what the job descriptions were… 60% of them was for outside / construction work. Another 20% was for a combination of local law enforcement and military. 10-15% was composed of jobs that required higher education than I currently have (ex: networking software engineer) and the other 5-10% was regular retail / grocery store work. I walked around for 45 minutes, spoke to the telemarketing guy (who insisted the work they did wasn’t telemarketing), grabbed one business card that I never called back, and left. I had a headache for the rest of the evening but did my best to not let any of that get to me. I supposed the good thing is I got a few semi decent pictures out of it, but sadly, I’ll probably be too lazy to update my photolog anytime in the near future.

Today I went on a walk with my mother at the local clubhouse. I brought my camera with me and over the course of the 40 minutes we were there I took roughly 24 pictures and actually worked up a bit of a sweat. The walk overall was fine – while it started off morbidly (shortly after leaving the car I caught sight of an injured lizard on the ground. I was so fascinated with just seeing it laying there that I didn’t have time to alert my mother to it’s whereabouts until after she had stepped *completely* on top of it and walked a few steps past. After being stepped on the lizard sort of shook a bit and then laid still. I went and plucked a leaf and held it around my hand as I moved the lizard off the walkway and put him near some bushes. When I came back to check on him after the end of the walk there were ants crawling on top of him – he was clearly dead) it was nice to see some of the spring foliage and just in general enjoy some of the beautiful weather we’ve been having this past week.

Since my mother listens to special music tapes when she walks (with the purpose of keeping her footsteps to the beat of the music – helps her keep a steady pace) whenever I stopped to take a picture I would have to sprint a bit to catch back up to her as she didn’t want to interrupt her “aerobic flow” while I was busy “capturing the magic.” Since I had worn flip flops during the walk I now have the beginnings of blisters on my poor gimpy right foot. When we got home I started to complain about it a little. We had this conversation which I thought was hilarious:

“I think I’m getting blisters on my feet,” *insert gesture of showing the bottom of my right foot to my mother*

“I’m not going to stop while you’re taking pictures. I told you to wear better shoes.”

“Well I didn’t know I’d be sprinting after you otherwise I would of. Why couldn’t you of run in place while I was stopped?”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Why, you do it all the time here in the mornings.”

“Well, that’s different. No one can see me then.”

“Who would of seen you today? You killed the only witness.”

While I’m waiting for the next couple of hours before I go to a local job fair (held at the same place the last job fair I went to was located [I think] which was sometime in 2003 after having been rejected by Geico) I figured it would be a good time to write a journal entry. I do really need to write out my thoughts – but alas, I’ll be using as much hinting and innuendo so that (hopefully) none of you will know who or what the hell I’m talking about. Only a few people will know the specifics and I’ve already spoken much of my mind to them last night; though they probably don’t read this site, anyway. I feel a need to document the issue just because sometimes, the balls someone has in their efforts to try to shake a system up so it’ll be more of what they want can just leave you feeling “OMGZ! THIS IS ALMOST ENTERTAININGZORS!” So, here goes:

As much as I have accidently caused drama in the past, it really is something I hate dealing with – being the center of it, being apart of it, or just observing it. Though, above all of those, I really dislike people who not only attempt to cause drama on purpose but who also use others as pawns to do all the “necessary” work for them so they can get their way. That sort of behavior is manipulative and shady and downright unacceptable to me. And as much as it surprises me, I’ve recently come across someone who does just that (who I will refer to as Joe for the sake of clarity).

Joe has a habit of speaking to people in private, particularly people whom Joe feels hold an adequate amount of authority or weight, and those who would, above all, listen to what he had to say. In these private conversations, Joe would state his opinions and complaints in a way that seemed as though Joe was looking for not only someone else to fix these issues he had, but to fix them in the exact way that Joe wanted. In the course of doing this, Joe had to speak to one person after another for great lengths of time, trying to find someone who finally saw “eye to eye” with him – until, one day, Joe found that person (who I will call Sam). Probably feeling that Sam now gave him some sort leverage, Joe decided to hint and put pressure on Sam that Joe will do something drastic if the problems he had explained before were not fixed. So, Sam did what he felt he should – he went and talked to all the people Joe had spoken to before with the hopes that he could keep Joe from doing anything hasty if he could get resolutions for Joe’s problems.

Sam received the same answers and responses that Joe had received before, and Sam learned a little bit more of what Joe had been doing over the past few months. Unlike Joe, Sam did find a middle ground of agreeance with those he spoke to – mainly because he was willing to listen and compromise while Joe had not been. Joe will probably still do “that drastic thing”, but quite honestly, this reporter will be damn happy when he does. Shady behavior and using people as pawns is *not* how anyone should conduct themselves, no matter how strongly they feel about something. If Joe really had such a big bad problem with the way things are going, he should of done more than try to form secret alliances with people he felt would do all of the work for him. That’s lazy and counterproductive to teamwork in general.

Having spoken to Joe for a total of 6 hours of various topics, I’ve noticed a theme with most of his complaints – while they are usually abstract (ex: X person doesn’t help out Y people, or Z system is better than A system, or C object should be distributed F way) I’ve found almost exact mirrors to how they apply to his personal situation. He wanted X person to help Y people because, at the time of the complaint, he conveniently fell into Y category. He wants Z system because A system does not reward him for showing up late or leaving early as Z system might. He wants to see objects like C divided in F way to ensure when a C object comes along that he wants he’ll get a chance at it because F way would allow that. I’ve actually brought this connection up to him before, and he vehemently denied it… but to me, the timing of his “actions” speak louder than any of the fluff words he’s said then or now to cover it up.

But… anyway.

That was probably all more specific than I meant it to, but oh well. I don’t like people sneaking around and trying to manipulate my friends. If he wants something done, he should *do it his damn self* instead of recruiting others for the labor and threatening to do “something bad” in order to motivate others to get the changes the wants. How can he really be that passionate about his ideas and opinions when he doesn’t have the courage to put himself out there, to everyone, for the sake of them? How does he have the balls to tell the leadership how they should be functioning when he apparently holds no true leadership skills himself? Does he really think he’s clever and pulled one over on all of us? The reasoning he has just goes over my head I guess. I’m not much of a leader myself, and I’m wrong alot, but I’ll still go out on a limb and say what’s on my mind, no matter who is listening or the consequences I’ll get for saying it. It’s not that hard, and even if you fail at whatever the goal was for speaking up in the first place, at least you were *honest* and you *tried.* At least you’d have that.

So… yes. That about sums up the majority of what I can be abstract about. I have alot more specific complaints I could give, but this is not really the place for them. Hopefully this is the last time I’ll have the need to talk about any of this to anyone.

Back to the topic of the job fair… I’m not at all nervous about going like I was years ago. I am somewhat worried about whether I’ll find the damn place or not, since I refuse to ask my father for any help (I’m doing my best to keep him uninvolved in every aspect of My Job hunting – all he does is worry the fuck out of me by constantly talking about all the things I [said that I] don’t want to talk about. He also has the lifelong habit of flat lining through my accomplishments and then bitching about and rubbing my face in my failures for years at a time. Involving him would be as sensible as repeatedly bashing my head against a wall – so, no thank you, my mere-sperm-doner-to-me-of-an-assole-father. Your services are not needed here) I’m going to have to depend on Yahoo! driving directions to get me there in one piece.

As I predicted, I ended up making a new layout based almost entirely on what I said in the last post – that I wouldn’t be able to stand recycling a layout. And sure enough, as much as I liked the layout I had last summer/fall, I couldn’t take it. I’m actually completely surprised by the layout I put up yesterday however – I was expecting it to be much crappier. It has a spring/summer feel to it that I hopefully will like for a long, long time. I don’t really like the archives layout, so maybe one day I’ll get off my ass (or get on it, whichever would be more comfortable to work in PSP and type out code) and do the full page calendar layouts like I’ve been wanting to do for a while. We’ll see.

In other minuscule news, it’s gotten to the time of the year where snow is no longer a possibility and weather consists of nothing but endless amounts of fucking rain. Even though I hardly ever leave the house, not even so much as to step out on the porch (I’m dead serious when I say that – but, despite pity’s first reaction, it’s by choice, so no worries) I always feel as though I’m trapped in the house against my will when it rain for days. I like being able to open my window and have the slightly humid and chilled air in my room instead of the regular stuffiness… but in the end all it does is make me long for summer and short sleeved shirts.

Lots of stuff going on in the news which I don’t have much to say about. Although it’s none of my business, nor anyone else’s despite what numerous politicians and journalists seem to think, I am happy that Terri Schiavo was able to pass on with some dignity – even though the media frenzy almost stole that simple right from her as well. The pope will probably also pass on by the end of the week, and since I do not concern myself with religious practices, I am as heartbroken about it as I would be about finding out any random stranger died. The only recent celebrity death that made me almost shed a tear was Johnnie Cochran’s passing. I have no idea why, but I feel I’ll miss his colorful suits, catchy phrases, and the extra humor I used to get from hearing jokes about him that will probably no longer be as funny or even made as much as he fades into the past.

Happy Birthday Stephen and GL Alan and Jen for starting out your new lives together.