giving it away for free

Eli called me at work this morning. Eli never calls me at work, so when the secretary came to get me I immediately thought someone was dead. But when I picked up the phone I heard one sentence: “Quit your job. NOW!”

So of course never being one to blindly follow directions, I asked him why I should do that. And he said that we were already out of money in our ATM account from my check, which I got two days ago. Unfortunately, he got the news at the pump while trying to fill up. He was furious beyond words. He yelled a lot about my forty thousand dollar education and how it wasn’t right that I was busting my ass at work and we still have no money and they’re not paying me to be there so just walk out now. I tried to stay calm, since I was on the phone at the front desk where all the patients wait for their appointments. I pretended that we were having a different conversation and I made polite remarks as he spewed his anger down the phone line. “THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS, JAEME! I could work a couple hours of overtime and you could stop working there and we’d be fine. FUCK THAT PLACE!” Mmm, I see where you’re coming from. “Tell them to get fucked.” Hmm, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to do that. “You worked TWO WHOLE WEEKS so we could buy groceries. Just groceries and your whole check is gone!” That’s a very good point, but I have to go now. I’m in the middle of working with someone.

So I hung up and went back to my patient who was being very good by continuing to do crunches in my absence, and I think she was up somewhere around 200 because I forgot to tell her to stop at 30 before I ran away to my phone call.

I finished up with the avid cruncher and then I went to my boss’ office to talk to him. I didn’t tell him I’m quitting, I told him instead that Eli had an accident at work (his head fucking exploded) and I had to leave for the day. And then I came home and transferred money into the ATM account so Eli could get enough gas to come home from work. Then I stewed for the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do about this situation.

I called Eli once I got home and he apologized for being crazy on the phone. I apologized for wasting my time in a job that doesn’t pay me enough to keep us from bouncing checks every other week. And then I got on the internet and sent resumes to everywhere I could think of and considered selling some blood.

Eli’s right though. This is bullshit, this vacation I’ve been taking for the past few months. It was necessary at one time, but now it’s not and I need to get my ass back into the rat race. Especially since the cost of being crazy has gone up recently and between my meds and my doctor’s visits my mental health tab is running me about $100 a month. Add the ridiculous price of gas and our cost of living has gone up significantly since last year at this time. But all afternoon I’ve been feeling really horrible when I think about everything that would mean. I’ve been on the verge of this for a while, and we even went to look at a daycare last week just so that when something eventually comes through we have a plan. I’ll tell you about that miserable experience next time, but for now I will let my resume do its work out there in the world while I play Farm with Joey. I’m necessary to the game. I'm the rooster.

Comments

[jess]

thinking of you and your situation. been there (in a similar fashion), understand what you are going through!

[sherry]

It's really complicated, isn't it? I'm looking for work but we don't have a daycare (and the waiting list means we should get in right around the time they're ready for college). This means I am looking for evenings and weekends, though if I can nab something that is just evenings, it would be great so I can actually have two days where we can be a full family.

The problem is that these part time jobs pay like crap. If George worked overtime he'd probably make the same that I'll pull in or a little less. Unfortunately his work is really physical so the overtime might kill him. It just sucks that our society is built in such a way that we generally need the two incomes when the two incomes don't even make it all that worthwhile, you know?

Good luck. I'll send you good email-the-resume vibes if you'll do the same for me. I am sick of job hunting.