Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by sheer honesty, or you think me having my own opinions is "being negative", then this is not the place for you, and I suggest you leave and head elsewhere. I call a spade a spade, and I don't sugarcoat anything.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Odd Jobs

Once I am through scanning this story I have been working on, I have to get started on another one, and that one is one of my favorite stories of 1997! It came from Cathy's genius mind and mine combined. Cathy and I often collaborated in a lot of our stories, but this one is one of the best ones. It's called "To Work or Dress?" and it's about Candi and her husband Leopold. It's kinda based on a few of my own life experiences, with a little twisting and stretching here and there. Candi goes and buys a dress worth $500 and she is terrified her husband will find out. So she has to get the money back before the credit card bill comes. She and her friend and neighbor try to figure out a way that she can get the money and the only logical way is for Candi to get a job. So she looks in a newspaper and sees an ad that reads "Earn $100 per night". So she calls in and gets an interview for the next day. The story is not that great for small children or young teens because Candi "bares it all" in this story. LOL!! But then again I don't know. I remember when I went to see Titanic back when it was in the theaters, Kate Winslet bared it all and Leonardo DiCaprio drew a picture of it. Not so ironically, there were often people in the theater watching that movie that had children and teenagers with them! So maybe I'm a little old fashioned.

The story is based on the struggles I faced once I was out of High school and wanted desperately to begin making money. So I applied for several jobs. I looked in the paper and I saw an ad that read "Earn $100 per night, call *this number*" and nothing else. Did not even have one word saying anything about the job it's self. So I called and the person on the line gave me the address and told me the best time to come down was after 5 PM. I had to catch the bus but I went anyway, just out of sheer curiosity about what kind of a job this was. Well, I knew where the street was the business was on, and I knew how to get there on the bus. When I got to the road, there was a hot dog stand, a big gray building with no windows, and a produce market. The only place that matched the address I was supposed to go to was the big gray building with no windows. So I went there. The door was solid and also had no windows. It looked like a factory of some kind! Really! But when I opened the door and walked inside, I saw a bunch of naked women on the stage doing dances! I was like "Oh my GOD!!!!" I was so embarrassed!! I was only 17 at the time! That was the first time I ever saw a strange, naked woman!!!! Made me uncomfortable, even the manager I was supposed to see sensed that. But I went ahead with the meeting. I just grabbed an application and went home. I never did fill out the application and send it back.

My next job was a telemarketing job, and I hated it!!! They wanted me to sell lightbulbs. And I am not the best salesperson in the World!! It was a commission-based job, so I didn't make much! Plus we had to catch the bus there, and it was late at night, and I got a little worried. I remember after that job ended at about 11 PM, I had to walk a mile up the road to catch the bus and I said I cannot do that every night!! I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get home! It wasn't the walking that bothered me, it was the hour. Some buses don't run to some places after certain hours. I was lucky that night! My bus ran on that particular night until 1 AM to my place. But it didn't run that late every night. So I had to quit that job.

I remember out of desperation in 1997, I got another job doing telemarketing. But not selling anything, this time it was just doing interviews over the phone. The first one I did was for Eddie Bauer, the clothing store. They wanted me to ask their regular shoppers how informal or formal they are living! I had to ask strangers things I wouldn't even ask my closest friends!! But I could not tell the customers the interview was for Eddie Bauer. I was a lowsy interviewer! I was no better at that than I was at selling lightbulbs!! It made me very uncomfortable asking these things of strangers. But at least it was a paycheck every other week! I remember early on this job, I called a woman and I was just getting the interview started the way I was supposed to. I said "Hello, I'm calling to conduct an interview to find out how formally or informally you're living...." and she replied, "That's none of your business!" and hung up! LOL!! I wanted to say to her "Do you really think I personally give a shit how you're living or even IF you're living??!!" I laughed about that for quite a long time really. I swear a lot of people seemed to think I was doing these interviews for myself, but I wasn't. But I couldn't get mad at anyone because I could not get my mind off the fact that I probably would say the same thing if I were them.

I was no damn good at that job, and the supervisors seemed to know it! One woman who was one of the supervisors was a woman named Karen. She was the same age as my father! She was also very obese. I didn't like her, not just because she always copped an attitude with me, but also because she smelled bad!! She always came to work with armpit odor, her hair always greasy, and I swear her underwear was also always dirty because you could smell that too!! I didn't like her to even come near me!! I would have liked it a lot if she was not on that job either!! I never said anything though because she didn't come near me that often. Whenever she did though, she was always loud and overbearing and cruel to me. I swear I did nothing to her!! I never even told her about the body odor she had!! I don't know what her initial problem with me was. I guess she was just nuts.

As bad as that job was, it wasn't the worst one I ever had! The worst job I ever had, by far, was working for the rides and concession stands at the Puyallup Fair. Not just because I didn't like the supervisor there, but also because I just never wanted that job!! I don't know to this day how I got it! I applied for a totally different and unrelated job there working with a man who was going to sell tropical fish. But he never showed up. Somehow though the rides and concession company must have got their mitts on my application and offered me that job instead. Some kind of conspiracy, I think. I hated that job with a passion! Like I never hated a job before!!!

That's what Candi does in the story though. She goes through several jobs. I don't want to give away the ending, it's too good! All I will say is watch for this story! It should be up on the site soon.

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