The Job @ Hand

Jobs are tricky things. In this day and age, everyone needs at least one.

There are the jobs that we'd like to have, and there are the jobs we have to have. In a minority of instances, those two concepts merge, and a person finds a jobs they love. The Dream Job. Doesn't happen very often, but it's a beautiful thing when it does. Unless that person rubs it in your face; then they're just a douche in need of a good punch to some place vital...like a rib, or the ball sack.

As with everything else in our existence, we've broken the notion of "jobs" into many categories: Full-time, part-time, blue collar, white collar, seasonal, temporary, entry level, and middle management, just to name a few. These can be, and often are, combined, altered, adjusted or eliminated. We've also devised new and not-always-interesting ways to describe our jobs: Administrative Assistant, Custodial Engineer, and Refuse Collection Specialist are some of my favorite examples. Many of us bring our work home with us, while most of us just like to rehash the day's, or week's, events over a round of liquid courage.

Some people stay at their jobs for years; others bounce between jobs like a puppy trying to choose a favorite toy. Some of us wear ties every day; a lucky few get to tie one on. Jobs can be inside high rises, strip malls and office parks. Jobs can be outside in glorious sunshine, dreary thunderstorms or frigid snowfall. Some people can make lots of money in just a few short months; most of us go a lifetime without so much as an extra zero appearing on our bank accounts.

They're cursed things, jobs are. It's a love/hate relationship unlike any other. We may like the people we work with, we may like the type of work we do, we may like the pay - or the benefits and bonuses - and we may like the hours. But, if it came down to it, a lot of us would rather spend our days lounging on a beach, or a mountaintop, or in a field of gently-swaying grass staring at bunny clouds and jet trails. If money wasn't an issue, how many of us would actually work our day away? I sure as hell wouldn't, and I'm betting the lot of you would be right there with me.

Now, I'm not talking about not doing something with your time, like learning a foreign language or painting bowls of fruit or reading the world's collection of great books. I'm talking about W-2s and direct deposit, "business casual" and casual Fridays, quarterly assessments and end-of-year reviews, pay raises and 401(k)s. I'm talking about Work, with a capital W. Regardless of what you do, how many people would continue doing it if they didn't need to do it? If the planet became a utopia overnight and suddenly the masses didn't need money to acquire the things they need and/or want, how many of us would put in the hours we do now?

I'm guessing some of you are saying you would, and you may be right. For a while. But I guarantee after watching us slackasses cavorting around you, you'd become one of us before too long.

And let's not get started on the whole "winning the lottery" joke, okay?

We've now reached the point of the story where you, my loyal followers, politely yet sternly ask, "What's your point here, dude?" Over the last week I've had a lot happen with regard to the word "jobs" and now things have culminated with not one, but two incredible writing job possibilities. And either - or, Fate willing, both - could be the start of something big.

Before we get to dream jobs, though, let's start with real-world stuff. Back in March, I had a part-time job. I took it to earn a little extra money for the wife and I; mostly because I felt like a slacker just sitting at home and going to school, but also because a little extra money's never a bad thing. The truth is I only took the job because the wife also worked there part-time, and she convinced me that working together would be fun. And she was right. It was. Until things started getting bad at home. Suddenly, working around people who got along with my wife better than I did made it not such a fun place to work. So I quit. It didn't matter if anyone there knew what was going on; I knew, and I didn't want to look at those people anymore. In hindsight, having spent the last three months trying to find anything to bring home a paycheck, I should've stayed. I didn't, and that's my cross to bear.

That being said, I've looked at everything. You know those categories I listed at the start of this thing? Yeah, I looked at every single one of them. My skill set covers writing and editing, clerical and office, shipping operations, and warehouse and stockroom management. You'd think someone who's reasonably intelligent, willing to work hard, and - perhaps most importantly - not friggin' picky would be able to find something in three months. Turns out, you'd be wrong. Every part-time, full-time, seasonal, temporary and contract job available that appeared even remotely in my wheelhouse was applied for. The only nibble I got was about a month ago when I interviewed with AAA Colorado for a mailroom/stockroom manager position. Didn't pan out, so here I am.

Last week, I got a call from a corporate HR person for Sony retail stores. I'd applied to be a seasonal stock clerk for the Cherry Creek location about a month ago, and they were just now getting back to me. Can't imagine how many resumes they had to sort through before they realized mine was pretty damn good, but I'm glad they stuck with it. I completed all of their online paperwork and scheduled the interview with the local store manager. About five seconds into the interview, I knew I had the job. It helped that the guy actually said, "If it was up to me, I'd start you tomorrow." But of course, there are pesky things like drug tests and background checks to go through first, which brings me to the Funny portion of today's blog.

Drug tests are pretty darn simple. You go into a medical office, pee into a container, and pray your poppy seed bagel from two days ago won't screw your chances. I got the paperwork for my drug screening location on Tuesday and immediately went to have it done. This was around 1 p.m. As I'm walking down the hall to the door, a lady comes out, walks passed me, and says, "It's busy in there." Um...crap. This doesn't bode well. Sure enough, it was busy. I signed in, sat down, and prepared myself for the long wait. That is, until seven minutes later when someone else walked in and asked the lady behind the counter what to do. She told him to sign in, but that it was about a - are you ready for this? - two-hour wait! But wait, my story gets better. Not only that, but the lady behind the counter was the only person working the lab. The entire lab. As in, she had to check people in and do their visits to boot. Oh, and there was also that teensy little issue of her leaving at 2:30 p.m. because she had somewhere else to be.

Confused? Let me make this simpler. A lady working solo in a medical lab had patients backing her up to a two-hour-plus wait, but planned on closing the lab in ninety minutes to leave for the day because she had "somewhere else to be" later.

I got up, scratched my name off the sign-in sheet, and left.

Wednesday I got up, showered and left the house. It was my mom's birthday, so my brother and I were taking her out for lunch at 1 p.m., and my brother was meeting me at the house at 12:30 p.m. That gave me two-and-a-half hours to sit in the lab and get my pee on. Alas, when I got there the wait was just as long as before. To top it off, I finally got a look at the sign outside the main door. (Someone had been standing in front of it on Tuesday while yammering on a cell phone.) The lab was open from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., but only did drug screenings from 8 -10, and from 12:30 - 2:30. It was already 10 a.m. Without even bothering to sign in, I left.

Lunch, btw, was best summed-up by the appetizer we shared: Deep-Fried Green Chili stuffed with Mac & Cheese. It. Was. Awesome!

But I digress...

How's this story end? With my getting up at 6 a.m. yesterday, getting to the lab before seven, waiting for the one person ahead of me to be seen, and being done and out the door by 7:30 and home before eight. Ah, the joys of having to pee into a cup for a job.

Now we get to the meat of the story. I know what you're thinkin'..."way to bury the lead, Harper." Fair assessment, but inaccurate. Since the "job" I'm ultimately looking for is Paid Writer, I was building up to the Good News:  I may have a job. Not a "job" like "part-time seasonal stock clerk for Sony", but a Job like "paid to write a story, have a byline and have said story seen by a target audience." That's a lot better. I can't really talk about it too much right now, but once I can y'all will be the first ones outside of my family and friends to know...though you'll probably see it on Facebook long before you read about it here.

All this, naturally, begs the question, "Why bring it up if you're going to be so secretive?" And while I applaud your perceptive and quizzical nature, I laugh bemusedly at your lack of vision. The Job in question has deep connections to the ski industry. Not just in Colorado, but nationally. As in "other states besides Colorado." As in "also including Utah." Which, if you've been following this blog (and I see no reason why you shouldn't be...) is where the Ultimate Mountain Gig is being held. The Job should take about a month, which is plenty of time to get the people at The Canyons to check it out and see just how capable their new blogger is going to be.

You see where I'm going with this now, don't you? Fate is calling, and for once I'm not sitting on the toilet and singing "Another One Bites the Dust" with my boxers warming my ankles. Everything is lining up nicely, even if none of it has actually fallen into place just yet. They say that in this day and age it isn't what you know, but who you know. I don't normally agree with that ideaology; truthfully, it doesn't matter who you know if you're not competent enough to do the job...unless you're in politics, apparently. But now, I'm starting to see the benefit. I've made some great contacts in the last eight months, and those contacts will be leading to more and more, helping me create a network of people and businesses from whom I can get not just steady employment, but valuable information and skills to be used in later assignments.

In other words, if the next month or so works out, then by this time next year I won't need to pee in a cup for a seasonal stock job. And that, I'm proud to say, is my idea of a "dream job."

Though staring at bunny clouds sounds nice, too.