All My Little Words

I think a lot about unemployment these days – it’s pretty impossible not to when so many people are unemployed, including the one that I live with. I was just thinking about different peoples attitudes towards unemployment, and towards working and what it would be like to be unemployed.

I honestly have no idea, nor will I ever, as the line of work that I have chosen does not really afford me the luxury of being unemployed.  There are so many places to apply for work out there in my field, that I am sure that if I were to find myself out of work, I would be able to find a job fairly quickly, even if it were just at Supercuts. That would be completely unpleasant, but I would certainly survive.

I have only been really, truly unemployed ever, when I was fired from my previous job for the crime of starting my own business. Even that did not feel like unemployment because I was only fired two weeks before I had planned to put in my two weeks notice anyway. I also had so much to do during the next few weeks, I essentially was working even though I wasn’t earning a wage at all. So, even though I tried to get unemployment (because I was supposedly fired for other reasons, and I was contesting that), I didn’t even remotely put my heart into finding a job, because I really already had one.

Now that I am a business owner, I will really never have that luxury of being unemployed. Even if it gets slower here, it will always get busier again. It is slow-ish right now, but we keep getting new people all the time, which means when winter (the slow season) is over, we may very well be TOO busy. I also think I am a little slow right now because it is near the end of a long month, and I bet I’ll be super busy next week.

I say “the luxury of being unemployed” because often, even if you wouldn’t give up your job voluntarily, you might not complain if you didn’t have to go anymore at least for a while. Let’s face it – the knowledge that now that you are no longer working and can sleep in tomorrow morning when you would have had to get up for work otherwise really balances out the feeling of dread that you get when you wonder how you will eat.

it can be really nice to have a “bonus” vacation, one in which your only real job is to look for a job. yeah, things may get tight, but your house will be clean, even if you did sleep in, you will still feel well rested and have time to go for a walk or watch a movie or whatever.

And honestly, isn’t the promise of a new, different job ALWAYS exciting? That’s another thing about my line of work that is kind of funny and makes it different from most – it is kind of the same wherever I go. Yes, a new job would have a different commute, different scenery, different co-workers to deal with, but honestly, salon furnishing s are salon furnishings and there are drama queens wherever you go.

Another interesting aspect of this is people calling here looking for work. A woman called the other day, and even though the idea of having someone else here is appealing (it would enable us to come in late or leave early more easily, or take days off, pay rent, etc.) it just wouldn’t work unless it was someone we know.

We have a small shop, and although we could feasibly squeeze in another chair, at this point we probably wouldn’t want to. So another person would mean a chair share, and I think  we are both so used to our own space that it would be too weird. Also, there will never be any employees here. Another person would have to be their own one person business, just like we each are, with their own licenses, credit card processing, etc. Most people aren’t ready to deal with that, and many people in this industry simply aren’t equipped to deal with it.

And as much as we each may not always love the way the other does things, we are very much a team. We have known each other for many years, and worked together for just as long. We each answer the phone at our time of day, for ourseves and for each other. A totally new person would be answering the phone for the two of us, never themselves.

I don’t even need to call the woman who called back to know she wouldn’t work out. She said she had 30 years experience, which would make her 50. I’m no ageist, but how would we get along and what would we have in common? Would the customers be comfortable with someone so different from us? She said she had no clientele. How is that possible? I suppose she could have moved here from somewhere else, but building a clientele is difficult, even when you are young. How would you do it at that age? She would be a complete stranger to us, very different from us, and no matter how he we tried it would always be US and HER. We would never be a team. I feel badly for her, looking for work now, but she would be best off doing what I would in that position – go work for Supercuts or something for a while until you find a place that is a good fit.

As much as I realize that it is awful to not really have much sympathy for the unemployed, i feel somewhat justified. I had my first real job at 15, and it sucked, but I did a good job and stayed at it until I found another job that sucked less when I was 16. The first job pretty much begged me to stay. I left anyway. I had the next job for close to four years, until I decided to leave to go to school. Again, my employer begged me to stay. I said no, and they hired someone else, a woman who was probably twice my age with five times the experience. She only lasted a couple of months, and then I had to come back part-time until they could find someone else.

When I was 17, I got a second job, a fun job, a part-time occasional job (in truth, in those days, I worked a night a two a week at that job), so even while I was in school, I always had at least one part time job, and for six years of my life I had a full-time job and a part-time job. For the one year I was in school, well, going to school was like a full-time job, because it wasn’t sitting in class listening to lectures and taking notes and doing homework. It was hands-on most of the time, performing the same services (and more) that I have for work ever since. People paid for those services, we just didn’t get a commission for performing them, although we did get tips. And during that year in school, I worked at one part-time job for the full year, and the other part-time job AS WELL as the first part-time job for several months.

I obtained a full-time job before I graduated from school, and arranged to begin work the day after I was licensed. I only had about 12 days of down time between my last day of school and my first day at my new job.

I only left that job to move out of state, and in my new location, it only took me about a week to find a new job. It was a part-time job, but I also had a second part-time job, so was working full-time still. The second job’s employer was irresponsible, so I left before it was too late, but easily picked up enough time at the first job to be full-time still. My employer at that job thought I did such a good job, that when she knew of someone who had one, she suggested I take it. How often does that happen? So I made another smooth transition, and stayed at that job until I moved back out of state again.

It may have taken me two full weeks to find the next job, but it was a good one, and it lasted for several years until I moved out of state again. After that move, I was in a position to choose to be unemployed for a while, which is not quite the same as simply being unemployed. I wasn’t supposed to be working outside the home (I became a stay-at-home mom). However, when necessity dictated that I become gainfully employed again, I got the first job I applied for.

I only left it to go back to being a stay-at-home mom again. Another time arose when I again needed to become employed, and again, it only took me a couple of weeks, a few applications and two interviews to obtain a job, another which I stayed at only until I moved again.

Frustrations with life led me to move back to my home state yet again, and one phone call had my old job back. In the first six months I was back at that job, I worked more than full-time, including a 21 day in a row stint, followed by one day off, followed by another twelve days of work in a row.

That job was the one I was fired from, and here I am today. In 22 yearrs, I think I have only really not worked at a job outside of home for maybe 18 months total. A few recessions have happened in that time, including one in 1990 (during which time I had a kept two jobs) and one in 2002 (during which time I not only obtained a job, but worked all that overtime, the 33 days out of 34). Granted, those other recessions were not as bad as this one, but still, I maintain that if I had to go out and find a new job right now, I feel confident that I could have one in a few weeks.

All this work over all these years has made me tired. That is why I could see being unemployed as a “luxury”. I won’t be unemployed for a long time, not until I can retire. And while I hope that I can do that in a few years, who knows what lies ahead? It may be a lot longer.

It is a gloomy day, even by my standards, but even as I eagerly await the emergence of spring, today is a good day.
Because isn’t any day that all of your bills are paid, and you still have money in the bank a good day?

We are in the middle of a recession and Alex hasn’t been to work for maybe a whole month now, but we were still able to replace our water heater, have a little party at the house, and go out to eat and whatnot.

And you know I always think it is kind of nice when it is quiet at work for a bit. It will be busier than not sooner than later. In the meantime, I am enjoying the chance to relax with my thoughts.

I had started writing this a bit ago, with the intention of finishing it before the next customer, but she was early, so now, I have no idea what I intended to say.
All I know is that life gets better and better all the time.

Ah, a hot shower at home, a clean kitchen and dishes, being able to wash your hands…
Such little things, you don’t realize you miss them until they are gone for a few days.

As of yesterday afternoon, our new hot water heater was successfully installed, and works beautifully. We did three loads of dishes yesterday, and our kitchen finally does not look like a bomb went off. I took a shower this morning, and was grateful to be able to do so.

It is a cold, rainy day and quiet here, peaceful, not the worst follow-up to a three day weekend ever. I can’t wait to make those a weekly event!

Our neighbors had offered to let us use their shower the other day, but I haven’t wanted to, because that is just kinda weird, right? Well, no one was home just now, so I ran over to do just that. I left a note, in case they noticed that someone had been there, even though I left it just like I found it. Fastest shower in the West, because the only thing worse than having to be naked in someone else’s house who is not your parents or your boyfriend is having them come home while you are naked in their house.

That statement makes me realize, that I never spent any time with Alex in his home. I think I went to his 15th & prospect house a couple of times, but the visits were brief, it’s not as if I ever stayed over there with him, I didn’t even know he liked me until after he moved out. Then he lived in Kirkland, and always just came to my house. In fact, that is why he moved in, because after the first time he spent the night, I don’t think he ever slept over there again, and it was only about a month before he had to move out of there.
I can’t believe it’s been two years TODAY since the first morning we woke up together. I guess that makes it the perfect day to get married, huh?

Anyway, the shower did not clear the cobwebby half memories from my head. And I just found out the hard way that there is no water AT ALL right now. I ate a carrot cake cupcake, which btw, was topped with roughly a half gallon of frosting, which was not smeared evenly all around the top of the cupcake (the edges were actually bare) but was blobbed onto the top, a mountain of frosting that is impossible to bite into without making a mess.

I guess there are always  face wipes for washing.

I survived the weekend of my birthday, with no more damage than being really, really dirty at this point. Okay, it’s not really that bad, but it has been 4 days since my last shower. Although I have been known to not wash my hair for that long, I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without a shower. And while I haven’t done any hard labor, I did go to work for three of those days (cut hair on me), have a very garlicky italian dinner Saturday (thanks again, Emily!), do some drinking (and, someahemsmokingahem).

Dinner was great, my party was pretty low key, and there wasn’t any hangover. At some point, I actually had the wherewithall to stop drinking.
The only after effect I seem to be suffering is this strange…something, in which every time I have a thought, along with comes a vague snippet of what must have been a dream that I only barely remember. The inability to capture more than a wisp of any of these “memories” is anything from frustrating to fills me with absolute dread for some reason. Seriously, at a couple of times, I have felt this horrible sinking, cold feeling in my chest. I believe that it is because I am unable to tell from these fleeting images that are just sort of wandering in my brain are real or imagined. Some, I am sure are bits of dreams I’ve had and didn’t really remember until now for some reason, but we all know how frustrating it can be to sort of try to capture the memory of a dream, and this has been going on almost continuously since last night.
Maybe I just need a shower.

Alex is working on installing the new water heater now, and because he suggested that maybe I could just go to Erik’s house to shower, I am guessing that he doesn’t want to utter the horrible, horrible words “IT WON’T BE DONE TODAY.”

I am off to go eat a carrot cake cupcake, even though Alex was going to make me Eggs Benedict today, I’m gonna let that one slide.

It is a good thing that tax time is near my birthday and I always file early.
For whatever reason, it seems that things always start to go really, really wrong shortly before my birthday, then a tax refund swoops in and saves the day.

This year, Alex got furloughed, then did not get sent back to work when he was supposed to. (It does not sound as if he will be going to Moses Lake though – he is trying to go back to work with the company he was with before in about another month. He has been told that the ML job is not as big as they are saying.) Then, he felt like we should not go out for a nice dinner for my birthday, as I would be paying for it and that didn’t make sense to him. Emily suggested dinner at our house, but I was getting frustrated about that because I would still be paying for it and it would cost just as much because there would be more people. Then, he gets a $900+ electricity bill from this places he used to live in which his name was on the bill with two other people, and was never taken off, and apprently, they didn’t pay the bill, and have now run out on it, leaving him to pay for electricity he never even used. AND they left the place trashed, which he could be held responsible for as well.
Now? Our water heater isn’t heating water.

I was actually taking all of this pretty much in stride this morning, even though no income tax money had landed in my bank account yet.

It turns out that my tax accountant had it deposited to Alex’s instead. Which is wrong,wrong, wrong, as I won’t be able to pay for some extra stuff with it until it can be put into my account, hopefully today. We’ll see. Now I guess it doesn’t matter if I have to pay for my own damn birthday or not!

I guess the last email that I sent to the harsh reviewer helped – she sent me a nicer email, thanking me for taking the time to email her, and she removed the review. I’m going with the assumption that she was having a less than perfect day, or was feeling a bit sensitive or something, but at any rate, the issue is resolved, yay! Making an effort isn’t always a waste of time. I hope she finds the right place for her.

And who says that eating less won’t make you lose weight? I have been paring my consumption back and as of yesterday was down to a single meal. Not only did it NOT bother me, I actually felt better than usual. I haven’t weighed myself yet, but I am sure there are a few pounds missing, because I managed to get on some pants that haven’t fit for a bit today. Here’s the thing. Previously, I ate some cereal or toast for breakfast, and i didn’t really love it. I’d eat a sandwich or whatever for lunch, and it was fine but not AMAZING. All this breakfast and lunch eating stimulates your appetite, but mine wasn’t getting satisfied because it was boring, and ever if it was, dinner is the best meal of the day. I certainly don’t want to skimp on THAT. I used to be fine with that, but now that I go to some lengths to make delicious meals for others, I may as well enjoy them too! So, I would rather eat a normal portion of dinner, and screw everything else. Presumably, eating that much less also makes my stomach shrink or makes me used to eating less too, so a “normal” portion of dinner really is normal. So whatever, eating this way supposedly isn’t healthy, but I feel better, so…??? Aren’t we supposed to listen to our bodies?

My birthday is this weekend. I am trying not to have too high hopes. For what, I have no idea anyway. I guess I just always want to have a good time.

I am full of anxiety and paranoia today, literally walking on eggshells, due to an incident on Monday that I didn’t even realize was an incident until it was too late.

A girl/woman/person came into the shop while I was busy with some other customers. I was wary of her right away for no reason I could put my finger on. It took me a moment to break away from the haircut I was doing, but I did and the person observed that i seemed busy. I agreed, but asked what I could do for her. She managed to get something out about a consultation for a haircut, but broke off before saying when. I asked her, and put her down for Wednesday morning. I told her that the haircut could be done at the same time if she wanted, it was no big deal. By the time she left, at worst, I thought she was a little shy or awkward, but didn’t really think anything else of the exchange until that evening when I looked at my email and saw that she had sent a very abrupt cancellation email, and also the Yelp said we had a new review.

It may have been the worst thing I’ve ever read, and was not so much a review as a personal attack on me. It was obviously her, even though she had posted it under a fake name. It seems as though she created the acount solely for the purpose of writing that horrible review. I flagged it, as it seemed suspicious and I thought Yelp took issue with people using fake names. They won’t remove it though, and their FAQ suggests “reaching out” to people who give reviews.

So I did. I emailed her an apology that I thought was pretty reasonable, but profesional. I didn’t want to rehash anything, or look like I was trying t make any excuses, I just wanted to smooth things over. Her response was even more hostile than her review. Instead of making me feel worse, it made me feel better, because I feel like there is something else going on. Perhaps she needs medication, or I met her somewhere else, or she knows someone who knows me or something. I have no idea who she could be or how I could have slighted her, but this situation is not normal in any way shape or form.

I can be a pretty angry person when I feel that I have not been treated with respect, as I spent the larger portion of my life being picked on and made fun of and generally degraded. So if I went somewhere and didn’t get good service, or felt like I was being looked down upon, I might get pretty upset. I don’t think I have ever been upset enough to act the way this person did. She said I could not have been more hostile to her. I certainly could have. Quite a lot, actually. But this situation didn’t warrant it, she wasn’t here more than a minute.

So today, I cringe every time the phone rings, or someone approaches the shop, because it might be her. I actually wouldn’t mind if she came in here, it might give me an excuse to call 911, and perhaps that would get her mean, nasty review removed.

For no specific reason that I can put my finger on, it’s just one of those days.

Today, in Notes from the Unemployment Line news…

Boy, am I ever glad that we did not buy a half a million dollar house. One of those poor Slogging unemployed did, with another person who apparently is no longer around, and is now stuck with it. I feel bad for her, but it makes me feel much better about the fact that not only am I not worried about having to pay for a house alone, but that our house cost quite a bit less.

Still unsure whether Alex will be going away to work, although after getting more info on that job prospect, it really would be something not to say no to.

He would make just as much as he has been (less per hour, but at 60 hpw, it comes out about the same) and would have a per diem that would pay for his housing and food. We agreed that if he went, we might as well make it count (and there’s not much to spend your $$ on in Moses Lake anyway) so his life there would consist of: work, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat for 4-5 months, and extra money would be put towards paying extra on the mortgage, or saving up for…something. If this happened, it would begin in about a month. He needs to call his boss at the place he is on furlough from though, and see if maybe the possibility will motivate them to put him back to work here sooner than later.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good for a number of reasons, and then something happened and that was the end of that. The details don’t matter, because it is always the same shit, different day.

I really want to knock it off, the last thing I want to do is spend the last month before Alex goes off to work away somewhere bickering. It’s just stupid. I guess that has something to do with why I feel a little on edge. The possibility of 4-5 months of dealing with that kind of sucks.
On a completely unrelated note, I still have no sympathy for people who are poor planners. I don’t like them one bit, and perhaps if they would knock it off, I would be a little less tense.