Do All Promises Begin This Way?

Two Feet And A Heartbeat

To think that over the years I have given thousands upon thousands of dollars to that special place in all of our hearts, a little place many Americans shop every day. I never, not in 50 lifetimes, thought I would be on this side of the fence where I would become part of this machine. Eventhough I do enjoy a fair amount of anonymity here on this blog and in social media, my conscious forbids me from revealing the name and/or location of this place of employment since over the years I have read the many instances where corporate retaliation ends up in termination of employment. So, for now, until I know what I can say legally, I will remain as vague as I please. Y’all have a fucking imagination I would assume, this would be a fine time to start using it. But wait, this post is about two jobs actually. I think before I begin I will say that yes, I did consider an offer to go back to being a bartender. An option that was quickly dismissed by my significant other unless it comes down to being the very last resort. I will be the first to tell y’all that $28.59 an hour, 30 hours a week, and NO weekends was a very hard opportunity to turn down and dismiss. With that being said, I respect my wife’s wishes. Yes, it would mean going back to the very club I worked before. New here and curious? Just search my blog for the answers you seek.

Anyway, I have been trying to get back in at the very place which laid me off 18 months ago because they are hiring now, the money is decent, and I know the work involved inside and out. I’m a perfect fit. One problem though, a big problem, the position doesn’t open until the 3rd week in August. Which means, plainly, that I can’t want another month for a job I don’t even know if I will be hired for in the first place. Fortunately for me, taking a night shift weekend job gives plenty of opportunities to work day shifts full or part time at the same time. Seems, as I have seen, its almost better to have two part time jobs. I have also noticed, in this being round two in an 18 period, that many companies are simply looking for people with two feet and a heartbeat to fill mindless jobs for $9.00 an hour. Unless you’re fucking McDonalds, where I was turned down employment opportunities because I lacked one year of fast food restaurant customer service experience, identifying that I don’t have the skills to serve their products to the demanding public. Yea, WTF is the term you are searching for. Which, for me personally, gives me one more reason to hate that company with a bitter fucking passion.

Oh right, get back to the present, and tell y’all about the job I will be taking, in fact I just spoke with the HR and I’m to go in for completion of my paperwork and orientation later today. Meanwhile, I will continue my pursuits in getting on the payroll of one of two former employers again. I have not been enjoying this fucked up little journey, but I have come out of it a little wiser in my opinion. This whole thing begs the question, why is my lack of customer service experience make me a least desirable employee versus a high school kids looking for his/her very first job? Is it because I have the obvious demeanor on my face that states I’m not a people person? I cannot help it, people have jaded my views over the years of my life which have given me fantastic people skills. It truly is a double edged and double standard society we are a part of. All I know is I’m not a candidate to prostitute myself out for sex because there isn’t much of a market for someone pushing fifty in the parts I live in. Plus, my wife would have issues with it. Too bad selling my blood and sperm wouldn’t be too profitable because I have plenty of both. Plus, I’m a rare blood type, AB-, that should be worth much more wouldn’t you think?

What’s a fucking shame is that my disability is in such a mess or I would just quit working altogether. I shouldn’t say it like that, but it’s very true. Someone recommended I monitize my blog with advertising, or sell shit here and in an online store, and a few other ways to use this blog to make money. I won’t ever do it because this blog is my hobby and would cease to be enjoyable if it became work. Hell, people coming here is their unfortunate accident to begin with so it really would not work out well. I’m boring enough without trying to sell y’all shit you don’t need or want. In the end maybe this new job will help get things back on track. I can hope, right?

I Hate To Say It, But Here We Go Again

Once again I find myself looking for a job in a sea of opportunity which I don’t have the qualifications for. But then again I don’t have the skills that “most” companies are actually looking for. There are plenty of jobs out in the greater Houston area for $10 per hour and over an hour away, but I can’t afford to take those jobs. So, I have been busy once again over the last three weeks looking for new opportunities. I won’t bore y’all with my resume here, but, if you are in the Houston area (north/ northeast) and looking to hire a disabled veteran and you would like to view my resume, I will gladly email it to you as soon as you send me an email. I don’t know what else to say, this feels awkward in so many ways, like I’m pimping myself out on the street or something. This is probably because I’m not very good at networking with people, when in reality that’s what I should be doing every day all day long. So, if y’all know something and wish to pass it on please email me. I’m return, I will send you my resume, it will come from my personal email and not the email you send your email to. Confused? My email is thestingofthescorpion@gmail.com and hopefully we can connect soon.

Get Ready! Get Set! Let’s Gooooooooo!

Most people would frown upon having to be at work before the ass-crack of dawn, but not me. This is my time, this is the time I know that all the people working 9-5 during the week are still curled up in their beds, dreading leaving the comforts they have been enjoying all night long. But that’s not me, I’m the person who roams my house at 3:30 a.m. because I’m plain done sleeping. Regardless if I must go to work or not, I’m up, I’ve always been like this, it’s just the way I’m wired I guess. As I roamed the job site I’m at this morning, in the calm of the morning, still dark, it gave me time to review this past week. As I have mentioned, I have started back to work luckily. With my back to it, I feel the sun beginning to break through the treeline, beginning to become visible over the horizon, peeking through the trees, over the buildings, and of course the power lines which litter the view in any direction one looks. Of course, me being me, me being the one who still likes to meet the sunrise which greets me good morning, needs to grab a picture.

I have missed very few sunrises in my lifetime, and I have a feeling that won’t change. As I took the second picture I could hear my mother whispering in my ear not to look directly into the sun, then I clicked the picture. What can one more picture with me looking directly into a sunrise hurt, right? As I walked the job site, earbuds in, metal cranked up, I saw the overall picture with the changes that had occurred after my departure the evening before. In many ways, I felt a sigh of relief come over me, because it meant that quite possibly that there would have to be very little ass scrambling happening since there is a great deal which must happen today, as smooth as humanly possible, so concrete can be poured first thing Monday morning. I had said I would get into my new job after a few days, lucky you, today is that day, however, there still isn’t much to say, because I’m in training, I’m studying, I’m learning, and luckily for me, remembering things I never even knew that I knew. Don’t get me wrong, I’m learning more that my memory has served me, but combining the two elements has been making my transition easier for me. Whether or not that serves true with my new boss I can’t say, I probably have been frustrating the shit out if him with all of my questions, he has allot on his plate, which he just chews up, only spitting back the plate.

Hopefully I don’t say all of this wrong, but I will try to explain my new job and the eventual role I will be in. I found quickly that much to do with the commercial construction is about a person’s title, not necessarily one’s actual experience. But then you could have my boss, who comes with many, many years of experience, but still has a title. His experience shows through and is reflected in how he works. He offers perfection, and demands one put out their own perfection, he commands this without asking, which is a great way to learn for me personally, to be mentored in a fashion that is well above “industry standard”. He is a rare breed and he makes coming to work interesting. There are many hours of the day that I spend in what I will call ” observation, collection, and absorption”, because that is part of how I learn. What better way to learn, right or wrong, good or bad, people working at their specific trade. Again, luckily for me, I spent many years working for and with my dad, before he retired, as a residential concrete contractor. To my advantage, for a great deal of what is going on right now, I know what they are doing and the concept of what they are trying to accomplish with concrete. I remember the early days when I was part of the crew, the labor, which is how my own dad taught, which was hands on. One does not know the skill of a shovel in the right hands, one cannot respect a person which the shovel if you have never done what he had done. I spent many years with a shovel in my hands, setting forms, moving concrete, and helping turn a once vacant lot into a home for a family to live. Of course, later in life, after the Air Force, my role did change in the family business, where I had the opportunity to get my feet wet on the management and supervisory side of the concrete contractor business. Those lessons, not what I have learned in school, are lessons that serve me well now, because I am being refreshed in how psychology and the stroking of egos is just as important as raising hell when something is all fucked up. I have missed the construction industry since I’ve been out of it, its great to be given the opportunities to get back in the saddle again.

In the end, for now, I’m just the new white guy on the job site. Learning and absorbing as much as I can comprehend to build myself a knowledge base which can only benefit me as time progresses, nobody wants to have dumb employees now do they. Plus, for the second time in my life now, here is a job which involves so much more than just being a mindless zombie laboror. Eventhough I never minded the mindless monkey work because it was work and it paid the bills on time. As time progresses over the next few months I will update everyone as to how my chosen path is going. In reality, the “job” chose me, as I’m very lucky that for probably the first time in a very long time, I was in the right place at the right time to accept this outstanding opportunity. Plus, bonus here people, financially it couldn’t have been more perfect timing. I owe a debt of gratitude to the man who set it in motion and even more to the man who has given me an opportunity not to just have a job, but to have an outfuckingstanding job. Can y’all tell I’m happy? I can tell, it feels great. And now I close with a great selfie, have a great day.

It’s A Small World………………..Afterall

Now that I have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, let me tell you just how small a world this really is. Let’s start with the fact I started a new job recently, those of y’all keeping up may have noticed my delinquent behavior here at the blog, and with every new job there is a fair share of “new hire” paperwork that has to be done. At the point when I started mine, given to me by the assistant, I realized I new her, I couldn’t place from where, but I knew her for sure. Its not a case of de ja vu either, I knew her from somewhere. It will come to me sooner or later is all I can think. Later that afternoon, after leaving work, I stopped by a strip club which was right up the street to inquire about a part time, evening, maintenance position I came across is my job searching the week prior. I thought if it were for a few hours each night it might not be a bad gig since it was a half mile from the other place. When I called, the manager said to just come it at my convenience and we could talk.

I went in and asked around for her at the bar. I was asked to have a seat and she would be out shortly. My eyes were drawn to the stage for a moment because all strip clubs are not created equal by no means. Then, a dancer caught my eye, I mean really got my attention, I had to get a closer look for sure. I got that same feeling from earlier in the day, this was truly bizarre to say the very least. When I approached the stage it hits me, like a ton of bricks kinda hit, all asses are not created equal either. It goes way beyond it being the girl from my new job, its deeper, a few years ago I had met her at the club I was a bartender at, she just didn’t show up one day, and that was that, it happens with strippers. When she turned around and saw me looking up at her she just grinned and kept going, never missing a beat. I headed back to the bar where the manager was now waiting on me. In the end, I did not take the job. Why? They wanted a janitor to clean bathrooms, not a maintenance guy. Before I left I looked for her now that she was done dancing, but never did see her, so I left.

The following morning I was bent over a pallet on the floor loading it out for delivery. Between my legs I noticed she was standing directly behind me. She squatted down beside me and asked if we could talk a second. She talked, I listened. She explained she recognized me right away the day before, but didn’t think I recognized her which is why she didn’t say anything to me then. After going down memory lane about the things she would do on my bar in my plain view and sometimes with my assistance, she asked I not mention where she works or what she does to the others. Um, okay then. Before she walked off she tells me that anytime I come by the club to ask for her because she would make sure I had free lap dances that I wouldn’t soon forget. Interesting proposal, but I doubt I will be going back, lap dances are the least of my worries in life.

Fast forward to this morning, a morning without a happy ending, but one I saw coming a mile away. To say it simply, I was let go. Why? I was hired on the contingent that I would have my Class A CDL in a timely manner. I was doing my part over the last, now two weeks, to get it, in fact I posess my learner permit now, which I got this past Friday. You see, I have been studying my ass off for this test, for this job, but they had other plans in their agenda. They hired a driver, no wait, no muss, no fuss, and they no longer had a need for me. OK, yes, this is bullshit, because I applied for a warehouse position and was being paid that of a warehouse worker which was to change at a future date. Whoops, I missed the memo that they hired someone else for the position which I did not have the credentials to fill. To hell with it I guess, I didn’t like the 55 minute drive anyway to get to work. Plus, with the new laws I wasn’t 100% positive I could get the medical part of my CDL requirements because of being an insulin dependent diabetic. There were allot of factors that could’ve fucked me in the end, so I look at it as the silver lining in the cloud. This just might have saved me allot of heartburn because there were many unanswered questions about it all. It us what it is, tomorrow I start the hunt for a job again, hopefully the next one works out better. No worries though, I’m like Tigger, I gots allot of fucking bounce left in me.