tomorrow i start a new job. my last real job was a temporary two-year gig at Pearson Education. it was nice, i knew the place and the people and it was easy to get to.

i left pearson and started working on the magazine full time while i was on unemployment. i also got a part-time gig at the local library. worked at the information desk helping people find books, answer questions, organize, do history crap. it was pretty awesome. especially because i was also getting unemployment.

turned out that unemployment only lasts 6 months these days. so i needed more money. i managed to squeak by from february to october, but then started back up at starbucks. suburban starbucks are totally different than city starbucks. more volume, more people, drive-thrus. 9 people on the floor at a time. and they're all doing something. headsets. label machines. they really are odd ducks. in the city, we might go through one mocha bag a day. out here, we go through three. at least.

but the money wasn't enough. if we ever wanted to redo the bathroom or go on vacations, i would need to be making more than $28k a year. with paid vacations. and maybe benefits. plus i was running up my credit cards and using money from our savings. i was living paycheck to paycheck... something i hadn't done since i was in college. scott and i don't share money, so i felt the pinch of having to pay half the mortgage plus some utilities and all of my bills. at one point, i was down to less than $100 in my checking account.

i had applied for one job in the city, but it was a library job. i was thisclose to getting it, too. but nope. i tried not to get my hopes up, but they snuck up after i found out that they had called the library as a reference. most people said it was a slam dunk. but it wasn't. they wrote me an email to tell me that they had chosen something else, but it had been close. i wonder what had tipped the scales.

so i kept applying. to graphic design jobs, mostly. most of them i am unqualified for. i am not a digital guru. i don't have an impressive portfolio. i don't like doing marketing or logos or branding. i am not your typical graphic designer. i do publishing. i design books. pages. i love doing graphs and charts. i love making everything uniform. i love cleaning up other people's messes. i do enjoy prototyping, but i'd rather make templates. shit that people can use.

so i finally landed a gig at FTD, the flower people. i'm surprised at how many people don't know who FTD is. they're in Downer's Grove, so it will be a commute. it's doing design and production. and that's all i know. i do know that i'll be starting new... again. yet again. always new. never seasoned. never with seniority. never with power or respect or a knowledge base that is useful. always new. and i'm fucking sick of it. i am tired of not being valuable. i am tired of be so dissatisfied or unneeded.

here are a list of the full-time jobs i've had:
international minute press, ann arbor. oct 1995-dec 1999. resigned because i was moving to chicago.
heinemann library, chicago. dec 1999-apr 2004. laid-off.
world book encyclopedia, chicago. jul 2004-feb 2005. resigned.
mcgraw-hill publishers, chicago. feb 2005-feb 2006. temporary.
starbucks, chicago. feb 2006-april 2007. resigned.
american library association, chicago. aug 2006-sep 2009. fired.
pearson, glenview. nov 2009-feb 2010, mar 2010-jun 2010, nov 2010-april 2011, aug 2012-aug 2014. temporary.

maybe this job will be awesome and i'll never leave and i'll be able to retire from it with 20+ years under my belt. sigh.