The Simple Things Make a Boomerang Happy

Let's have a chat about rejection. Today, I was rejected. And yet, you think, the title of this post is suggestive of something positive, why? 

Well, dear readers, first thing this morning HR called me, asked me about my vacation, had a laugh and then she explained that the promotion I had applied for went to an outside candidate. Bummer right? Yes, the money would have been nice, the hours would have been nice, the whole thing would have been nice. But my follow up email after my interview was met with doubt, for lack of experience.

What made me happy about the phone call was the sheer fact that someone picked up the phone and said "hey, thanks for trying but we went with that other guy." How hard was it? Probably not very. Yet, it is the third response saying as much that I have received in the last two years. The first one came in an email the day before my second interview for the position, the second came in the form of a formal letter and the third was today's phone call.

So please other rejecters, take note, Boomerangs and our fellows can handle it, so stop our wondering and just tell us. Thank you.

The Boomerang and the Family Vacation

As a boomerang I am faced with the daily challenge of being an adult and being treated like a child, it doesn't help that the walls of my bedroom are painted with clouds and my single bed is covered with Care Bears. Between both my jobs and their particular dramas, my household chores, my mother lecturing me as if I were fifteen and a week at the beach with my family  I am ready for a vacation.

I'm not complaining about the family vacation, we had a ton of fun, took a stand-up paddle boarding lesson, sat on the beach, ate out at some delicious places, there is nothing to complain about. The problem is coming home. As an adult I should be able to spend a week with my family and then go back to my life and enjoy they time we had together.

Instead, the drive back is a smattering of abuses and agitation. The unpacking is more discontent and then dinner is a fight. This is normal, this was one of my mother's biggest complaints against my father, even long before they divorced. It has to do with roles and expectations. And in some ways it has to do with my mother.

I love my mother but she had indeed forgotten that I am an adult. Friday when we left the beach, forced off by the blazing heat, she started in on setting a tight schedule for packing. She was upset that my vacation bed wasn't made and she spent some time admiring her handy work from the beginning of the week when she rearranged most of the furniture.

She is an A personality. Unfortunately, I am the person in the family who missed that gene. I let it go, I let it go, I let it go, but after vacation I need the space to not make my bed and not fold my clothes and leave my shoes in the middle of the floor to be tripped over, not because that's how I like it but because that's how I function.  I need to function a bit outside of the family.

How do Italian men live with their parents so long?

Abandoned by Facebook Friends

There is a car commercial out there where a girl sits behind a computer confessing she is worried about her parents' social lives, they only have 19 facebook friends while she has more than 600 "friends." The parents in the commercial are off biking with friends and having a great time. The commercial is a disgusting, though potentially true, depiction of the generation gap. I laughed at it, believing that I am above it, sort of.

Then, today, I went to post something on the wall of a friend only to discover that we are no longer friends. This is the second time in a week that I have realized that I have been unfriended. The first one didn't hurt so much, it was a former classmate that I was never particularly close to, but today, that hurt.

It hurt not because I have one less facebook friend but because facebook was the medium of communication with this particular friend who has a habit of being challenged by life and disappearing into the unknown for periods of time. And, please don't tell him this, I look up to him, I need him because I am also not sure what is going on.

Granted our struggles are worlds apart, and I tend to find out about his though strange sourced, but he is/was a a buddy though it all. Usually he was just a laugh. And a laugh is pretty important at this point in my life.

So here's to missing my facebook friend. A tear shed.

Hunting with a Boomerang

I am serious about my job hunt again. It's neither new or exciting and yet I set aside hours to do it every week. The thrill is gone. I dread the entire process, which makes me much less likely to find a job. And people keep mentioning that they know people who have had success in finding work, which, despite their enthusiasm, is considerably more discouraging than someone telling me "it'll happen" while frowning and shaking their head.

I don't think people's commentary on my situation is supposed to be discouraging, I think they intend it to be exactly the opposite, and for that, thanks you guys. But please stop telling me that all six of your son's girlfriends graduated this spring with jobs in hand, good for them, honestly, but it makes me feel like a failure.  My friends who have jobs they all seem to get it, only once has someone been silly enough to tell me that she has a 9 to 5 and can't just go and do anymore. As she's saying this I'm forced to smile and tell her how tough it is to be an adult, while inwardly screaming about working irregular hours, up to 60 a week, with half the pay check and none of the respect that she gets.

But then again, people don't know how to react. And while I try to be thankful they care, I spend many days seeing red and many others green with envy. So with my renewed job hunt vigor I'm also trying to figure out how to pay for classes so that my resume doesn't come across as having done nothing for the past year.

My biggest and brightest idea: teaching people to job hunt the boomerang way.

All joking aside, I'm going to start editing academic papers if at all possible; it's a tiny bit of income, with a tiny bit of practice and a little entrepreneurial spirit.

Operation Ada Jane

Set some long term goals today. Proud of them. Proud of myself.

I think I'll start using full sentences from this point forward.

The whole thing kind of stems from my youngest sister's status as a rising high school senior, which isn't a big deal to my life plan except that when she graduates high school my mother will sell the house and move to wherever seems super relevant at the time. So unless I've found a real job, I'll be out of luck and out of time.

So with my dear mother's help we've devised Operation Ada Jane. It is a plan that it's name sake perfected at the age of 17. She worked it hook line and sinker. I shall too.

Unfortunately, I'm working with smarter targets, driven targets. Unfortunately, said targets have been on to my varying versions of Operation Ada Jane for years. Maybe that will make it harder, maybe easier. And I'd ask your opinion but Operation Ada Jane has to be a secret or it will never work. And it has too, Operation Ada Jane is a comfortable future, not dazzling but cozy and sweet, which at this point is more than enough for me. 

If Operation Ada Jane is a successful I'll be set.

Wish me luck!

Leave it to a Boomerang to Swing Back

Mood wise. I'm pretty positive I'm not going back to the job unless big things change.

But today is a good day. I got checked out by the tiny African man at the Jiffy Lube, always feels good, my oil is changed, I went on a date, I went to Target and showed restraint, I ordered a tall coffee instead of a grande. These are all good things!

Today was a good day.

Last week was a string of fiascoes that, more or less, were just a cosmic kick in the pants. So what if my check engine light and ABS light came on at the same time. So what if I was pulled over fifteen minutes after the lights in my dash came on because I was without tail lights. So what if I couldn't find my driver's license when he asked for it (always check between the seat and the console, because chances are when you dumped your purse out to find your keys that is exactly where it landed). So what if the straw finally broke the camel's back at the second job I need but hated.

I fixed the fuse to my taillights myself. I found my driver's license. I didn't get ticketed. I'm happier out of that second job.

This is all motivation to move forward, move toward something new. I can start hitting the gym like I used too. I can start applying to jobs like I used too. I can go out on nights that I used to work on. I am better now.

I just need a fortune cookie to spell everything out for me.

Boomerangs Make Snap Decisions Well

Or not. And if I'm being honest with you I probably shouldn't be posting anything about this, for fear of it hurting future chances of employment. Or not.

It has at this point, I feel, been established that I have two part-time jobs. Now I have one. Today is the Fourth of July and seeing as I am an apple pie-loving, baseball-watching, farmer-tanned, red-blooded American, who woke up with two jobs, I went to work. As I'm driving on back roads to avoid all the parade routes and pedestrians who are having fun and not being safe near moving vehicles I pick up my beeping phone. My job had called.

Apparently I was late. The girl who had given me my schedule last week had messed up and I was supposed to be at work at 12:15 PM not 2:15 PM. I call work back and explain the mistake, tell them I'm on my way, I'll be there in 20 minutes. The response back was an unpleasant "We'll discuss it when you get here." So my mood, already low, is soured. I am one of the people who 97% of the time is punctual and the other 3% is with 15 minutes and I felt bad for being an hour late but am a good worker bee and would make up the hour I missed at the beginning of my shift by staying late.

At some point someone blabbed over the headset that all the breaks were done. I pointed out that despite being late, even if I didn't make up any of the time I had missed at the beginning of my shift that I worked a long enough shift to require a break. No one responded and I didn't get a break.

But more unhappy things are going down, the manager took the day off but all the lower management is in the store most of whom are acting as if they own us. I hear from one of my co-workers (the newest sales lead at that) that after I called in there was a little chat about me lying. Which is funny because I'm a horrible liar so I stick to telling the truth like nobody should and that is one of the reasons there are a few people who do not like me at the store I work(ed) in. Some funny things went down with my numbers from yesterday, petty stuff. But petty stuff is becoming a problem so I made comment to the Co-Manager (fancy name for crazy assistant manager who calls you at all hours of the night drunk) about the changing of numbers and accusations of lying and she assured me that they would have chats.

And I can only imagine what chats were had.

So I'm folding tables, because people shopping on holidays are absolute pigs, and up storm to me eyes blood shot and voice in that strange raised whisper (didn't stay low for long either) and then:

Her: "Just so you're not made at me I gave you that card* under your number!"
Me (and I'm seething that this is happening so my left eye is rolling around in my head) "Good. Because it's mine."
Her (yelling)"Blah, Blah, Blah, It's mine. Blah, Blah, Blah, I didn't change the numbers."
Me: "So after last night K******* came in and changed the numbers?"
Her: "I don't know who changed the fucking numbers, I don't give a flying fuck about the cards (out right lie) something something fucking something blah blah blah. Next time you can fucking walk out."
At this point I've stopped being calm and started handling things badly. I've thrown a sweater in this woman's face (zing!), taken off my holiday apron which held my walkie-talkie and chucked on to a not so near by table and stormed out.

Embarrassingly I had to go back to get my purse. I slammed my locker, but didn't talk to anyone. And now I have one job.

Future employers who may read this don't hold this against me, just know that I will not take it. Fair is fair, professional is professional and I am not a liar.

Also, walking out was the best thing I've done in a long while.





*Credit Cards are the main thing that goes in our performance review, the problem is there are a few people who take credit for cards when other people "sell" them. The day before this happened I had "sold" a card to a customer who had said she wasn't interested initially (thus my card as it has been discussed many many many times). The lady who would confront me later believed that I had given it to her, so when she found out I hadn't she flipped out on the only other manager working, who is not the manager. This morning I came in and found the official numbers changed. I don't care about the cards so much as I care about the sneakiness and lying.