The holiday weekend is upon us. I wonder so many people I know are going on road trips with the price of gas being what it is. Literally, my gas tank is siphoning my bank account dry. The good news is apparently prices are headed up, not down. Boo, the Queen of Cats, may have to seek employment if she wishes to continue indulging in her special salmon/chicken treats that cost me an arm and a leg every week at the pet store.
The past week, I have been sifting through open jobs online. I sent out three applications from one site before noticing the email associated with my profile was an old one I deactivated some time ago. Thinking this to be an easy fix, I went in to change it. After a half an hour of expletives and repeating the same task over and over again with no positive result, I had to throw up the white flag and admit I was stumped. Hate that. I decided to see if I could locate a customer service number on the site. Naturally, there wasn’t one to be found. They never include these numbers, I’ve noticed lately, so you have to muck about on your own until you either give up or drink the Kool-Aid. Jesh. Doing a Google search, I came up with an actual phone contact number. Yay. Dialing it, I was dropped into the usual endless loop of questions about why I had called in the first place. I have come to believe companies do this so they will wear you down and you will simply hang up and slink back under your rock. The first question in the next loop said, “If you are a job seeker, press 1”. Dutifully, I pushed 1 on my phone. The message once 1 had been pushed said, “Thank you for choosing our company for your job search. Please go to our website located at …….. for assistance. Good luck with finding a job you love”. Since there was no other option available but to hang up, I did, but then called right back. Turns out, when listening to the message again, there was also an option 2 available. Option 2, it appeared, was for companies looking for employees. Hmmmmm, says I, and pushed 2. Sure enough, a human voice appeared on the other end of the phone. I explained to the woman what the problem was, and she assured me she could rectify the situation on her end. SUCCESS!! She asked me all the questions used to identify the caller as the actual owner of the account. Then, she asked the name of my company. Ummmm? So, I did something I actually have perfected, I acted dumb. “Company”, says I? She went on to explain this line was for company inquiries. “Oh, huh, who knew”? At any rate, after putting me on hold, she came back on and fixed the problem for me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I say.
Good news is I already have an interview set up for this coming week. The jobs I chose to apply for were definitely a lot below my skill level. I have had high impact, stressful jobs most of my life. This time around I want twenty hours a week, a small supplementary paycheck, and zero – spell that z-e-r-o stress. The past eight years have had enough stress packed into them to satisfy my stress quotient for the next twenty years, so I feel at this point I am good to go.
Today I am going out to lunch with the new man in my life. Cheeseburgers are what the restaurant we are going to are known for. This offers up a direct line to my heart, as a good cheeseburger is my favorite meal. With fries, naturally. We are just beginning the arduous process of getting to know one another. When you are in your twenties, you haven’t had enough life experience to really have a lot of wrinkles to iron out. Now that is not true of everyone, of course. People like Charles Manson covered a lot of ground by their mid twenties, but generally people of that age are at the beginning of their learning curve. By the time you’ve hit fifty, you’ve pretty much crested the hill, and have most likely added a lot of notches to your belt. At the mid point of our lives, there are usually marriages, or at least serious relationships behind us, children, grandchildren even, and a whole bag full of life to share with a new partner. Some of the contents of the bag, one would certainly hope, will prove productive. There will be learned lessons tucked away in the bag, along with uncovered talents, achieved goals, hopes and dreams, all mixed in with heartaches, losses, unfulfilled desires and failures. The trick is to not take the memories or unfortunate events associated with old relationships that did not work, or memories with hard edges and drag them into the empty bag waiting to be filled up by a new relationship. I speak from some experience, this is not always an easy task and one I struggle with.
Outside my window the tops of the trees are bent in the wind. We seem to have an awful lot of windy days this year. According to the weather station this can be attributed to climate change. Wind always makes me a bit edgy. My friend, up on such things, says it has something to do with ions which effect your mood. My mood has been a bit off for a couple of days. I need to move it up the happy scale a bit before I meet my new guy for our burger. As I’ve said I’m usually fairly sunny as a personality but for some reason, could be all the sad news this week about shootings and mayhem my smile is beginning to droop. I’ve noticed I’m not alone in this. The phone has been ringing even more than it’s usual craziness and often the person on the other end has wanted to discuss a problem or was simply feeling somehow down and without energy. I keep pumping up my tire, and someone keeps coming by to stick a nail in it. It is hard not to absorb the collective energy swirling all around us right now. For me, when effected in such a way, I have to chain myself to my chair to keep from heading out for a little retail therapy. I am trying to generate new income right now, not deplete what financial security I do have. I heard a startling statistic this morning, 25% of Americans have no savings whatsoever to lean back on. That really did surprise me. I wouldn’t have any either if it wasn’t I have recently sold a house. Just heard that since I sold my home three years ago the value of it has increased by $100,000. Whew. Up, up, up and away here in California with the price of either owning or renting a place to hang your hat accelerating at a fevered pace.
At any rate before I go completely down the rabbit hole here, that is what I know for today. I need to go in and readjust my smile and prepare for my date. Have a good and safe holiday weekend. Keep your smile in place and hope for the best outcome no matter what.
I like that a little guile won the day and the human on the other end provided assistance 😊
Yes, sometimes a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Customer service, or the lack of it, is a big bone to pick with me. How you doing with the fog down there? Thought I saw on the news you were under a thick bank of it.