All Your Problems Are Self-Inflicted

This is how I imagine the conversation going. I tell you you are no longer allowed to complain. And then, in agonizing detail, I explain to you point-by-point how all of your problems are self-inflicted. I imagine that you are rendered mute and immobile for some reason because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get through the whole list I have prepared. Or perhaps time itself is warped in some way because in my mind we are in a public place and the world around us stands still as I speak. Just so you understand how much I have thought about this.

- For reasons that are unclear to me you went to college for two years to attain a useless major that you decided to abandon in favor of going to college for another four years to attain a possibly more useless major (so useless that even the internet is vague in describing what it is exactly). As a result of these decisions you have a fair amount of debt you must now repay. You complain about your debt even though it's much less than what most people are working on repaying.

- You cannot attain a job having to do with your major. You complain about this even though you seem to be aware that your major was 'not as practical as other majors' you could have chosen.

- You have a lot of bills to pay every month because you choose to live alone in a one bedroom apartment. You complain about this despite the fact that you are aware a one bedroom apartment is nearly as expensive as a two bedroom apartment.

- As a result of your decision to live alone and your inability to get a well-paying job in spite of your college degree you have to work around sixty hours a week at two menial jobs in order to make enough money to pay for your rent and such. You complain about this profusely rather than doing anything to change the situation you're in.

- You often have to get up early in the morning. This is a direct result of your having to work but you complain about it regardless.

- You do not seem to like your boss. You complain to me about this person even though I do not know them and likely the only reason you dislike them is because they're your boss.

- Your work schedule is worthy of complaint and having to work 'doubles' (as in, a shift at one job and then a shift at another even though this may only account for ten hours of work in a day) is something you bring up every time they happen. You complain about this though if you did things differently you wouldn't have to work as much.

- You rarely get whole days off never mind multiple whole days in a row. This, again, is a direct result of the fact that you work two jobs and you still feel the need to complain about it whenever possible.

- You are often tired. You complain about this constantly though it is an obvious result of how much you work.

- Any physical ailment no matter how minor is worth complaining about at least twenty times a day for a week. You once complained about a tiny superficial cut to one of your fingers for no less than a week and insisted on giving me the play-by-play action for how it happened originally and how the healing had progressed in the meantime each time I saw you during this period.

- Any physical ailment worth complaining about is worth bringing up again long after it happened. You complain about injuries to your person long after they occur even though it should be obvious that a healed injury is not worthy of sympathy.

- You once complained to me that someone else we know does not like you. It turns out that this is because you never have anything new to talk about since the vast majority of your choice topics of conversation revolve around creating a giant pity-party for yourself.

I am willing to give you the benefit of a doubt. It is theoretically possible that you were somehow unaware that other people's live suck too and that often other people's lives suck through no fault of their own. However, now that you know this I am going to have to require that you no longer complain around me because it does not stir any kind of empathy in me- just irritation.

Job Applications? Why bother?

I haven't decided if I am just inordinately lucky or if I have some kind of super-power but I realized when I was telling someone about my new job that not only have five out of my six jobs been great jobs but I've only ever even applied to one of them.

Jobs had:
Movie Theater
Music Theater
Amato's
Data Entry for the University of Maine
Book Store
Automotive

Job: Movie Theater
Acquired: Because my mother was working there when they needed to hire someone new and nepotism is something hicks in small towns do.
Pay: 50-75 cents above the State-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Cleaning, selling tickets, doing concessions, changing the marquee, cash-up, inventory, answering the phone, talking to people.
Perks: Free movies, free popcorn, free fountain soda, cheap candy, ability to read while getting paid if otherwise not busy, Christmas bonus, time off if/when I needed it.
Downfalls: Customers who did not understand that it was a one-screen, customers who wanted to pay with plastic, customers who wanted to buy tickets in advance, the fact that the theater was sloped and not tiered and any soda spilled ran down hill, seven day weeks in the summer.

Job: Music Theater
Acquired: Because my friend was their regular light-person and he knew I could do lights (I used to for productions at our highschool where I learned by doing).
Pay: A dollar above state-mandated minimum wage at the time.
Duties: Lighting
Perks: Free dinner, free fountain soda, free shows, attractive actors to look at, ability to play Pyramid solataire (because it fit on the counter under the light board better than other versions) while working.
Downfalls: Lighting system occasionally overheated and flipped the breakers which made me have to quickly throw on the spot-lights, turn down the master some, and run and flip the breakers back on, I was not an official employee, I only worked when the regular person was off, and they tended to cancel shows without any warning even to me.

Job: Amato's
Acquired: I knew the manager and she agreed to hire me on the spot.
Pay: A dollar twenty-five above state mandated minimum wage starting out and was given a fifteen cent raise after three months.
Duties: Making food, prepping food, prepping vegetables, washing dishes, washing counters, prepping dough, taking things out of the freezer, lifting heavy things, sweeping, mopping, cash-up.
Perks: None. I didn't even get a discount.
Downfalls: Cameras, not allowed to eat food for free, no discount on anything, worked by myself primarily, did not get breaks because of the previous, was not allowed to sit down, was required to serve customers until nine but it took nearly an hour to close up and corporate got mad if I stayed after I was scheduled, co-workers, hot oven, cooking in a fast-paced situation, the grease that permeated everything, the cement floor, and customers.

Job: Data Entry for the University of Maine Acquired: The scientist my father had worked with on a fishing research project needed someone to turn physical logbooks into spreadsheets.
Pay: There was 1,200 dollars budgeted to pay someone to do the data entry.
Duties: Turn logbooks into spreadsheets.
Perks: Work from my own bedroom, task took a total of eight hours.
Downfalls: I couldn't keep doing it.

Job: Book Store
Acquired: By application.
Pay: State-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Checking in books, magazines, newspapers and gift items, putting away books, magazines, newspapers and gift items, checking inventory in assigned book and magazine sections, straightening book and magazine sections, writing blog posts, making up displays and windows, helping customers find books, recommending books, checking people out, doing back-stock, some vacuuming and dusting, doing cash-up, and watching the customers.
Perks: Reading free books, discounts on store items, and talking to people who like books.
Downfalls: Dealing with customers who have no concept of reality, living with sometimes annoying coworkers, trying to figure out where to draw the line... for everything.

Job: Automotive
Acquired: Was informed of the job by a regular customer in the bookstore, told what it would involve, and was warned that the owner was very crude. I went in knowing I was capable of meeting the job requirements and confident that crude was something easy enough to deal with after living with a commercial fisherman for nineteen years.
Pay: One dollar and fifty cents above the state-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Opening mail, using Quickbooks and spreadsheets, answering the phone, doing billing, filing, updating the website, updating the company Facebook, smiling at people.
Perks: Nice pay, relatively easy work, would make a good future work reference, have permission to read when not otherwise occupied.
Downfalls: There are no buses that go past there and I may have to actually get my license. I have yet to work here but I suspect that 'dealing with customers' is probably going to be the biggest downfall.

Those five jobs that I didn't apply for but got anyway compared to the fifteen other jobs I applied to before I was hired at the bookstore and the several other applications I sent places since then that I never even got a call back on... Well, it makes me think that filing out applications might not be worth it.