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[bloodreaper]

I have a job!  

It's so great that I feel like singing.  

I can go to work, and do useful things, and get paid with money.  

Money!  

  Do you remember what it feels like to have money? I remember only vaguely, but I remember well enough to know that it's totally awesome.  

I can't wait to go to work on Monday. It's going to be so great!  

[bloodreaper]

Update after work on Monday:

I soaked in epsom salt for about an hour, when I got home. I feel a million times better and I still feel pretty stiff.   :-/

Work was okay. It was demanding, but not as much as my last job, which is sort of what I was hoping for. It's quite perfect actually.    

After I got off work, I had an adventure.  

--Not the kind of adventure where you save towns and collect treasure, though. This was more the kind of adventure where you wander for hours on end in a maze of twisty passages that all look alike.  

See, my car is broke, and I can't get it fixed myself until Saturday, because my car fixing place closes before I have time to get home on the bus. --theoretically anyway, I have yet to get home on the bus.  

I came by another route-- a long arduous route.  

First, I missed the bus. He was several minutes late and I thought I'd missed him. When I gave up, and walked away from the stop to find out when he would return, he drove right past me.   [img]http://beastling.xepher.net/images/forum/ramjik.gif" alt=">" title=">" border="0"/>

Since it was cold and pouring rain, I decided to walk to the next bus stop closer to my destination (he passed me going away from my home), so as to keep warm. The bus would catch up to me, and I would ride it the rest of the way home. Theoretically, anyway.  

I got pretty lost. There are three different townships clustered together, and they all use the same names for their streets. This makes street signs pretty much useless, as there's no way to know which Elm Street you just crossed. Nobody would answer their phone, when I tried to get assistance.  [img]http://beastling.xepher.net/images/forum/ramjik.gif" alt=">" title=">" border="0"/>

A police officer accosted me. Apparently getting a leg cramp while crossing the street entails having your ID checked, if a police officer sees you. Once he swiped my License number through his little machine and found that I wasn't a wanted felon, he jumped in his cruiser and sped off before I could ask for directions to the nearest bus stop. (We have no smileys that are adequately murderous. In my defense, I'd been lost for two hours at this point, on foot.)

Then I spotted a building that is a few blocks from a place one of my brothers works. Using that landmark, I got there 15 minutes before the end of his shift, and hitched a ride home with him.  

He got off work over three hours after I do.  

His workplace is about five miles from mine.  

My feet hurt a lot less than I did before I soaked them.

My feet are burning.

I have another work day tomorrow.


Thank you and good night! ZZZ

[Faith]

*Laugh!!!*  

Is this your "Job blog" or something? It's pretty great. I would read your blog, if you had one. XD
Even the title is a pretty great blog name.  
I'm glad to hear that you got a job.
Heh... yeah. After too long of not having a job/money, you get to really missing it. Then you get a job that isn't that great and/or is demaning and you wonder when you'll be doing something else. Then, in my case, I have to go back to school... (not really an improvement, in my opnion...) and can't wait to get a job again.  

Are you feeling better after a couple days of work?

[bloodreaper]

I was feeling pretty great after work yesterday.

I usually get Fridays off, so today is all mine.

Three day weekend! Whoo!

[Faith]

*Laugh!!!*  
It is now my Spring Break! Yay! I came home late last night from a Track meet and found a message on the answering machine saying that I have a job at the tree nursery and that I will have to wake up really stinkin' early on almost every one of my days off, including today and tomorrow! Hooray! XD
Ah, well. It pays. Minimum wage, 10 hours a day. That's what I'm there for, right?
There was grading trees... and digging them. So far, I like digging.  
Grading is boring and oppressive in a concrete room shut out from the rest of the world with a really aggressive supervisor, a bunch of gloomy workers and millions of trees that just keep coming. XP
Digging is quick-paced and active and permits conversation out in the open with a supervisor and workers who like to joke around and millions of trees that just keep going.  
It's a nice change.

So what is your job like?

[bloodreaper]

Every day, through a series of processes that are trade secrets, we manufacture several thousand of the finest knives in the world (and a number of cheap pocket knives with unusually good blades matched with flimsy handles. I just don't see this new model living up to our reputation for quality, but they practically fly down the line, so we can make thousands with relative ease).

Right now, they have me loading and unloading knives from a machine, as well as doing a little bit of finishing work on each knife, before it goes to the next person on the line. If I red-line myself for speed and endurance, I can actually process and pass knives faster than the station before me passes them to me, so keeping up seems like the best strategy.

I work on several different types of knives, in batches, so there's some variety and sense of progression. I suspect that the batches correlate to actual customer orders, but I don't really know anything about where the knives go once they leave my area.

The people in the area I'm working right now are very friendly, now that they have seen that I can keep up. I guess they've tried out a lot of people in this position in the last two years, and everyone waits for new people to prove themselves, before they get to know them.

In the area that I worked first, most people were positive and friendly, except for two people (one man and one woman) who were unrelentingly negative.

The woman seems despondent of factory life, as though familiarity with her tasks has led her to contempt and boredom. She is pining to work in another department, and has lost her love for where she is. I pray that that kind of complacency never overtakes me, and that I continue to strive to make more flawless knives with greater speed, for the rest of my factory career. She's an excellent example to me, on how not to feel about my job.

The guy doesn't actually seem to work with that group, but he always seems to be taking lunch at the same time as me, even now. As a new person, I don't have a regular group of people that I eat with so I often sit at an empty chair, at the table with the most room. Nobody else seems to ever sit at the same table as him.

He complains about problems with the company culture, the equipment and the manufacturing standards that I can't seem to convince myself actually exist. His proclamations are couched as warnings, but I think he's either looking for someone to commiserate with or trying to scare me into giving up.

He's proven a valuable resource, as I can ask him a lot of questions and get detailed answers. However, I have to confirm most of the details by another means before I act on them, as my source is potentially delusional or even a liar.

Other than that everyone has been surprisingly positive, and unrelentingly helpful, if uninterested in talking about work during lunch, which is perfectly understandable. If I continue to improve at this pace, I think I should be able to continue striving for excellence for several more years.

[Faith]

*Laugh!!!*  
That's neat.

When we're digging, we get to exchange riddles, stories and play twenty questions.  
Hehehe.
We talk about really interesting things, like the Cabuda... or rather, the tribe of glow-in-the dark eskimos in Canada. XD
Or getaway vehicles being "slightly cushioned by a tree."

Today grading wasn't bad at all.
...
I wonder if the supervisor was having a bad day, yesterday, 'cause today she was all happy and joking around. XD
Whatever the case is, I think I learned something. If the supervisor's happy, we're all happy. If the supervisor is not happy, however... well, you know how this sort of saying tends to go.  

Yay! Tomorrow is my day off for the week!!! XD
I wonder if I'll finish next week all the way to Saturday, or if I'll take a day off to get ready for school to start again...