Don't Ask

I’m such a phony; then again maybe not. I mean I’m not claiming to know what I’m doing or to be any good at it. It’s about half way through day three of “being on the floor,” which just means training is over and the rest of this six month contract is work, with a probation period in the middle. (I forget how long that is).WORST FEAR: That I won’t make it through probation. RESULT: My self-esteem goes for a bungee jump without the bungee chord. It’s okay though, I’m back in therapy so it’s only metaphorical suicide I’d be committing.

Even the money – which I need quite badly – doesn’t seem that good now. It’s heaps more than cleaning but partly because it’s more hours rather than a better rate. I think I’m one of the few people from my training group who has to suffer the bite in my pay packet from the HECS monster. At $49 a week the government’s gonna own my arse for the rest of my life! Bastards! On the bright side it does make me feel a bit more grown up. So far in my work life I’ve only had one other job that paid enough to make it necessary to pay HECS. (That job lasted a week in the end). I can get pissed off with my friends who also went to uni and are “suffering” the consequences.

I rang my mum near the end of my second day telling her how lost I was feeling. She sounded a bit pissed off with me. The tone of her voice as if to say, Don’t fuck this up Amy! I admit I do get panicky with new situations but a little sympathy please. Granted she’s under a lot of financial pressure. The regular doom and gloom of being low income coupled with the savings gobbling price of rent has been made worse by my father’s recent passing. Didn’t help any that he lived overseas and we decided we had to go. I know owe my mother money for the trip over. And she in turn owes family and friends money. Her safety net is gone. One day we may get money from the will but it’s not much compensation. Especially emotionally.

My biggest problem with the job is being too shy and stupid to ask for help when I need it. I can’t help but feel like a moron because when I do ask for help it’s not long before I need more! I know it’s my lack of experience but when I look at my work I can’t always tell if I’m finished or not. There are all these hyperlinks and codes. AGH! And sometimes you feel like you’re going around in circles.

I actually told my therapist this would be my biggest hurdle; asking for help. Even though I know it’s not a bad thing I still find it hard to do it. She said to remind myself it’s okay to ask; that it’s expected, especially at this stage of the job, and to tell myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” I know, I know, I know, BUT! I can’t…. I’m seeing her tomorrow morning. I’ll get to confess but I won’t feel any better.

NQR HNT (WTF?)

For one thing it's no longer Thursday, at least not in this part of the world. However I'm not waiting another week to post this.

I don't find the photo sexy at all, but it being me I wouldn't! It was more of a joke in my mind, a spoof of a moment in a movie I liked as a teenager. In the film Empire Records the employees find out the store is in danger of losing it's cool indie status and being swallowed up by The Man. Damn the man as they say themselves. They find the new uniforms, gross orange aprons and a list of what employees may or may not wear. The fairly-soon-to-be-famous Renee Zellweger playing the film's slut character has a rebelling scene in which she wears the new uniform with only her sexy, lacy black bra and panties on saying, "And they said no revealing clothing."
  

We've had OUR new aprons for, gosh, a couple of months already. I was so disappointed when I found out you had either a choice of wearing that or a yellow and blue hi vis shirt. Although those shirts can on occasion look sexy on the right type of tradie I find them absolutely disgusting. There is more than a bit of the snob coming out of me when I say it feels like it's branding me in the worst way as a cleaner/low income worker. I don't understand what was so wrong with the white shirt I was wearing before and still wear most of the time underneath the apron. In fact the shirt has the company logo on it whereas the apron doesn't. I'm getting used to it but still find the apron a bit cumbersome. For example the strings if untied fall into the toilets when I'm bending over them. Gross. It's just something extra that doesn't seem necessary at all. And so my protest-cum-ode to its existence is the mock HNT. (I'm not completely sold on the HNT tradition either).

Terry's arousal from helping me get this photo taken was surprising. (The photo doesn't exactly flatter). I wasn't going for that effect when posing. So it was a surprise to see Terry poking out and looking at me expectantly. I think I genuinely said, "Oh hello!" It didn't take me long to get on board and take advantage of the situation. Unfortunately my mum come home before either of us could.

It's not ideal having your fella stay with you when you're still living at home. Picture day was the second case of coitus interruptus. The previous time I thought I heard my mum's car pulling up but you guessed it I was wrong. We didn't really get much intimate times at all. My bed's a bastard at giving the game away - squeak! My mum subtlety offered us the couch when we were all together so I did lie on his lap from time to time. I couldn't get to the kissing in front of her stage, not even on the cheek. Arm around his shoulder or hand on his head was about it.
  

Returning to the work theme I have to say things have taken a dive. Not long after being told I was officially going up to 4 hours a day I suddenly and without no explanation went back to my original shift. That lasted around of pay, so a fortnight. I'm half way through the current round and have been given a few extra hours here and there but it's still a bit of a blow financially. The problem for me is the more often I do my original shift the less I can justify staying on and not going on the dole.

My dole fears are mostly about never getting another job, except possibly cleaning,again! I've been on it before and hated it. I stayed off it a couple of times at the expense of my savings. Just this week I started looking for work again. Didn't see much but did apply to Hungry Jacks online and got rejected barely a couple of hours later.

There doesn't seem to be anything out there for me. And after all this time I don't feel like I can do anything except donkey work. Which was kind of what my mum said to me on Wednesday when I was telling her I got some overtime that day that went to 9:30; and yet I still didn't finish it all! She suggested I do cleaning or something equally uninspiring at an elderly home. That really upset me because it felt like my mum had given up on me. I told her so later after I'd gotten over the initial hurt. We talked it out. Her point was if you have to do shit work then do it during the day. (Fair enough, I guess). My main issue is I don't want to be a cleaner at all. The comment reminded me of times when people ask what I do and when. I hate the reply of can't you do it at another time or somewhere else. Fuck sake that's not what I hate about it! I don't want to be doing it at all. Give me a little more credit, please. Oh and I'm not to fond of the "Someone's got to do it," response either. You know no one wants too and why the hell does it have to be me?

God! I think I better go back to living one day at a time rather than thinking of being in this job for the long term. The more I think about it like that the more I want to give up altogether. (You know what I mean). No future; no point.
  
 

Crapping On About Work

I don't want to go to bed yet. It's been hot the last few days but finally the firece wind outside is cool rather than warm. This is the easiest cleaning job I've had in terms of tasks to do but my God I was sweating up a storm last night. Not attractive. I was doing a bit of overtime but I think things are back to normal now. Bummer. Three hours a day fifteen hours a week, it's not a lot of money. I get paid fortnightly now. It kind of fools you into thinking you're making okay money, but I'm really NOT. I daren't re-check what the dole payment is because I know it's pretty close to what I'm making now. Rather than going on the dole I wanted to be making my OWN money but the strain it puts on my time and "social" life makes me think twice. Well it would if I could get over being on the dole again. Fuck no! Not again. Shit!