This week I am learning “if at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again.” I applied for a full-time position at work. I did not get it. But, the person who did get hired has now left a different vacancy. So, for the second week in a row, I am filling out an online application, updating my cover letter, and hopefully taking a mind-numbing employment assessment. The assessment features such gems as:
I have never gotten angry at anyone ever. Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.
Can I answer that it is a very loaded statement?
This is my new favorite song of the week. I am sure we will be hearing it as the soundtrack to TV shows and commercials soon.
As a writer, I am working on like 4 novels at once. I hope to have once finished soon. I am also trying to keep up my blog, as I do not want to lose views just as I might have a product (my future book) to hock to them (THIS MEANS YOU!). I don’t want to abandon my only marketing tool. I have also learned that I write because “I can’t not write.” So, I might as well try to find a way to use that to move toward a goal.
Making a little money from it would be nice as well.
Fame and fortune would be AWESOME!
I am not a stay at home mom, because I work part-time outside the home. But when I am home, I am chasing my child, trying to keep him clean and fed and happy. (The “happy” part is almost impossible.) I am also trying to keep up with the laundry and dishes and sweeping. I aspire to complete a thorough spring cleaning someday…for 2011. We also have two large dogs. So some days I feel like a zookeeper as well.
I work about 15-20 hrs per week in a retail customer service job. So, I spend all day waiting on my child’s beck and call, then I head off to get paid to do the same thing for strangers. I have an hour commute one way. So, if you figure I usually work 3 days per week, that is 6hrs I am gone from home and not getting paid for them, plus gas. It cuts into the bottom line. I know it sounds silly, but you have to understand that we love our house and want to stay close to our family. Therefore, we live in the land of very few good jobs. To get a job similar to the one I held for 12 years prior, we would have to move closer to Detroit, or a different city. We don’t want that. So, we make due.
I know that my husband does not see it this way at all. I try and throw the “three jobs” thought out there once in a while, but I don’t think he understands what I am getting at. He just sees my small paycheck and thinks I should get a different job. He views my writing as a hobby.
But I looked for a job for a year and a half, before I found this one. And where I am at now, I am actually making more than minimum wage. If I got a different job, that might not be the case. The minimum is the new maximum, me thinks. And with this job I have thus far avoided daycare for my son, which, could lead to additional costs.
I don’t think he realizes that in 2003, we tried to run our own business, because he wanted to. I supported him, because I knew a version of that had always been his dream. We were also planning our wedding at the same time. It was highly stressful. It was one of those businesses that only thrives if you sign up people to be under you. We never got any. We gave up on it. The info and motivational tapes from that are still sitting in our attic. Like a big sign that reads “failure”.
When we were both out of work a few years ago, he tried a self-employed venture. Once again, it wasn’t exactly his big dream, but it was something he would enjoy doing more than factory work. I supported him. The market was not real good at that time, and it was a hard business to network. It was hard for a new kid on the block to get word of mouth, when there were so many established people in the field available. He put that venture on the back-burner after a year. The advertising from it is still sitting in our driveway, a literal “sign” that makes me sad.
That is two years of my life of letting him take his chance on a dream. So, I am looking at 2014 as my year to pursue my dream. I am just not sure that he has realized that yet. We might not have a lot of food in the cupboards, but we are not going hungry. Working part-time allows me more time to work on my writing.
I have not reached my goals yet, but I AM GETTING SOMEWHERE!
I AM CLOSER THAN I HAVE EVER BEEN!
Will my goals cost a little money to get there? Sure.
Did my husband’s? Yes.
Will my writing pay out big dividends? Most likely not.
Did my husband’s? Not so much.
Were his ventures important to him? Of course.
Are mine important to me? Damn straight.
Imagine the wonderful harmony in our household if at least one of us was doing something they enjoyed as a part of a career?
Imagine if we BOTH were.
I don’t want to walk by boxes of my writing upstairs and have it remind me that I failed to meet my goal. I have been doing that for 20 years already.
When I first heard there was such a thing as doggy daycares, I thought it was a GREAT idea! Cute little dogs, running and playing all day while their owners were at work. I didn’t have a dog at the time. And when I did get my furry daughter Dave, I couldn’t afford to enroll her anyway. There was one in the city I worked in, but not in the city I lived in.
Then I got the great idea to start my own doggy daycare. I could take my dog there with me, to work every day! I wouldn’t have to miss her! I wouldn’t have to pay to enroll her! I could be making money off other people’s dogs! I could have it right in my own town and alleviate my two hour daily commute!
Why, Dave could be my mascot! She could also be my mascot for my dream of a Jennifer’s Wiener Hut. Hmmm. There must be someway to combine the two business ideas. Customers who don’t pay up, their dogs get ground into hot dogs! Wait, too gruesome? Scratch that. Just a cost-cutting idea 😉
My Dave, the mascot of my dog empire, featured her in an early mock-up
I love organization. I could have spreadsheets about what dogs get fed how much and what kind of food. I could make forms for prospective clients to fill out and submit with their proof of vaccinations and emergency info. I could keep have a file full of dates when I need to nag the owners to get me new annual shot records.
I made a mental plan to get a job at a doggy daycare for a while so that I could get paid training and pilfer their best practices. I looked up all the closest ones online. I watched their job postings. I even took an American Red Cross Dog First Aid class (required or highly recommended to work for most of these places).
My American Red Cross Dog First Aid card
At one point, I even had a job offer from one. At the time, it did not fit the requirements I needed for a job to support my family’s needs. Which, was kind of a huge bummer.
It seemed like a great plan and I held on to that dream for several years. But I finally gave it up. Mostly because our Pointer Parker is such a troublesome dog, he turned me off to spending all day, every day, with dogs. As I speak, Parker is pacing through the house. He will momentarily pee on the floor is I do not jump right up and let him out. It doesn’t matter that he just went out two hours ago. Or that I purposely left his water dish empty since breakfast so that he would not drink the whole thing all at once. I really do not like him. And part of that could be that he took my dream away from me. One of the few I ever had that seemed like I would be able to make it work.
This is the horrible Parker dog who has stolen my dreams from me. Don’t let the Santa hat fool you.
There. I just let him outside, and back in again. Of course, while he was out there, he danced the Riverdance in the mud puddles. He comes in covered in mud (and I know what else) from head to toe. He is entitled and ungrateful. He is actually a cat.
Cats would never be allowed at Jennifer’s Doggy Daycare.
I have returned to my ultimate dream: early retirement. I might need the help of the lottery to make that one happen.
A year ago, I was desperate for a job. But even then, there were some things that turned me off to certain jobs.
I applied to many jobs that required a drug test. Only one actually was interested in me enough to want to send me for one. But, as I got a concrete job offer from a different business, I took the concrete job offer. The place requiring the test had not given me a job offer. I was just in a big cue with a bunch of other desperate applicants. Mostly, I did not want to take the drug test. Now, Lazy Hippie Mama will vouch for me, that I am the squeakiest clean girl out there. Actually, she laughs at me that I don’t want to take one. The test would not have found anything. But I don’t really want any job enough to give them my bodily fluids. Unless, say maybe Edward Cullen is looking for blood donors.
I feel the same way about being finger printed for a job. A background check on me would turn up nothing that I would need to hide. But, if in the future, I want to start committing crimes, I want to have that option open. I want my fingerprints to be some of those that have no match in the CSI database. (I also don’t want to get a library card–just another way the government can track you!)
It is like in high school when my favorite teacher asked me why I wasn’t going to join the school’s anti-drug program. He must have been curious. He knew I was a good kid, did my homework, co-editor of the school newspaper, of which he was the adviser. Aside from the obvious fact that it was a big phoney club full of students who most definitely did do drugs, I told him the truth: I told him that I wanted to keep my options open for illegal drug use in the future. I still have that viewpoint.
So, that brings me to the purpose of this post. I have never been big on dress codes, but realize that in some positions they are made a necessity by the management.
My manager wants me to wear…
Ugh.
I can’t even get the words out.
Matched socks.
Not only that, she wants them to be black!
YOU: Why DON’T you match your sox? MY REPLY: Why SHOULD they match?
Now, when I was hired a year ago, I gladly agreed to wear black, closed-toe shoes with black pants and a work shirt. They never said anything about socks. There is nothing about socks in the employee handbook. At one point, my manager’s manager saw my socks, and we had a whole conversation about why I mismatch them. She never indicated that this was a bad thing. With new faces at the top of our local rung of the corporate ladder, we have now been instructed to wear black shirts under our work shirts, and black blazers over them. Now, mind you, we have to buy EVERYTHING but the work shirt ourselves. And if the minimum wage were to be raised to the value that the President of the United States has thrown around in the press since his State of the Union speech, I would stand to get a raise of over a dollar. I would be really upset about the blazer thing, if I did not already have one. And since I don’t have any black shirts without Twilight logos or characters on them, I had to buy one of those just to wear for work.
But this sock thing really irks me. Afterall, mismatched socks IS MY THANG! And, I mean, no one is probably even going to notice, as my pants meet the tops of my shoes. But I feel like there will be secret sock patrols out to catch me! I feel like I do my job pretty well. But part of me wonders if they would fire me over non-conforming socks.
THEY ARE SOCKS!
They are not like a ring in my nose or a tattoo on my forehead. Although, what would really be so wrong with those things either. Socks are a personal, private thing between a person’s feet and their shoes. Socks are like underwear. You wear them under your pants and shoes. I would not work at any job that tries to legislate my underpants and bra.
And if they did fire me over socks, it just might be worth it. I would still have my self respect. And imagine when I fill out future job applications. They will say “Reason for Leaving”, I could put “I wouldn’t wear black socks.” Some might see that as stubborn or not a team player. But some future employer might see it for the ridiculousness that it is.
This post will make you laugh, and it will make you cry.
My deep feelings about the Wienermobile are plenty. Let me share them with you now.
I never knew such a thing as the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile existed, until one night on the 11 o’clock news I saw it as the final 30 second special interest feature they always do before cutting away to the Tonight Show. As a devoted follower of all things weird and pop culture, I instantly fell in love.
I sent away to Oscar Mayer for an information pack about the Wienermobile. In those pre-Internet days, that is just how we did things. The packet was a folder full of stuff, containing an 8×10 glossy of the Wienermobile, along with historical facts, and of course a catalog of fine Oscar Mayer products for purchase.
First Wienermobile info packet from Oscar Mayer
Being a good little consumer, I totally ordered a Wienermobile shirt (it was one of my favorites for years), a Wienermobile Hot Wheel, and several wiener whistles, that I then continued to hand out to people who were important to me for years to come. (If you knew me in person, you would understand. Or at least you would smile to my face and laugh behind my back about it. That IS the polite thing to do, afterall*.)
Wiener Whistle
I was instantly interested in how I could maybe one day get to drive the Wienermobile. Unfortunately, it was a college internship thing. At this time, I was only senior in high school. So, I hung the picture on my bedroom wall and wore my shirt weekly. (Can you guess that I was not popular in high school? I was Sue Heck, from The Middle. I was so oblivious, I didn’t even realize how unpopular I was. Except I had glasses instead of braces.) At this time, I may have also came up with my dream of Jennifer’s Wiener Hut.
Sue Heck from The Middle standing in front of a giant hot dog. It is like this picture was MADE for this post!
When I started college and majored in Communications, taking classes in Radio and TV Broadcasting, and minored in English-Writing, I thought that maybe those would be skills Oscar Mayer might find useful. I thought that maybe if I had a Wienermobile internship for a summer, that then I could parlay that into an actual job at Oscar Mayer. Wisconsin is not that different from Michigan. Weather or culturally. I could probably handle living there. I like cows and cheese.
When I was a junior in college, I inquired again in writing to Oscar Mayer about how to become a hotdogger (what they call the people who drive the dog). They sent me another information packet (not quite as awesome as the one from 3 years before). Incidentally, that was the 60th anniversary of the Wienermobile. They informed me that the internship was only for graduating seniors. So, I would still have to wait.
Second Wienermobile info packet from Oscar Mayer (Yes, I DO save everything)
With either the first or second mailing, they had sent me a cassette tape with all the different versions of the Oscar Mayer weiner song on it. Traditional, march, bossa nova, you name it, it was on there. I even used the music (and some of my other memorabilia) to make a commercial for my TV Production class.
[My apologies to the college students who are displayed within. I am withholding their names to avoid any further embarrassment.]
The Wienermobile came to Toledo. I was brave and drove down all by myself to go see it at the Lucas County Fairgrounds. I took many pictures. They wouldn’t let anyone go inside of it 😦
The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile at Ned Skeldon Stadium
As I got closer to graduation, I wandered into the Career Center at the college once or twice. It was useless. Usually no one offered any help in there. Once the adviser guy did talk to me, and admitted that they did not get many job postings for positions in the Communications area. (Gee, thanks. Glad I spent 4 years worth of money here so that you could tell me that now!)
On one of these trips in, I saw it…
The sign to apply for the Wienermobile Hotdogger interships that year! The year of my impending graduation!
The bulletin that Adrian College posted (Note the incorrect spelling of Mayer!)
But F**K! The deadline was just a few days away!
I had to type up a resume and cover letter and get it in the mail, pronto. I am sure whatever I had for a resume at the time was pathetic, so I am sure I had to spend some time in the computer lab to revise it. The computer lab that was always busy, because many students did not yet have their own desktop computers. (Laptop? What is a laptop? A cell phone? Only guys on Wall Street have those. A smart phone? Does not compute.) I went to the post office and mailed it off priority 2-day mail, which I had never used before, because I wanted it to make it there by the deadline.
Then I worried and fretted that I had not made the deadline. I never heard back from them. Not even a rejection letter. By the time summer came and they would have been starting their Wieneriffic journey, I knew I was not worthy of the wiener 😦 I would have missed my then boyfriend, now husband if they had chosen me. But I think he would have understood. And followed me to Wisconsin.
For years, I was bitter about not getting the internship. I still am. In July of 2011, I was laid off from my job of 12 years. A year and a half later, I was still looking for a new job. I had gotten pretty desperate by then, so I was applying to somewhat crazy jobs anyway. Then I stumbled across the Hotdogger job. Again! But this time, it was not tied to anything about college. There were no restrictions, so I applied again!
I knew I wouldn’t get it. And I knew it was crazy, since I had a husband and small child at home who I really couldn’t leave to travel. But I had to apply. Again.
So I could feel rejected. Again.
I always knew someday I would write a blog post about the Wienermobile.
I HAVE ANOTHER SHOT! And because I am a powerful manifester, I will continue to get shots until IT IS MINE!
You think my confidence is cocky? I have a $2000 6 foot tall plush giraffe that I got for free in my house to prove that I CAN make my dreams come true. That only took me 20 years. And it only took me 20 years to get a dog. Hmmm…and to get a Red Wings hockey jersey…
I see a pattern here.
This bodes well for me and the wiener. And for getting a book published sometime soon.
NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!
RELISH THEM! (hehehehehe)
Once again I am coming down to the wire, though. If you want to enter as well, just tweet #tweet2lease by 2/7/14. But please don’t, because I want to win.
But if you do, and you do win, please swing by my house for a ride. That is all I really want…to have a ride in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
…and the Goodyear Blimp. Obviously not at the same time though.
* “afterall” is one word in the funnygurl2 dictionary.
I'm not stalking you. 