In which our heroine decides that a cold shower or five is a good lesson in being an adult.
I've been meaning to post for weeks. But then, I always say that, don't I? However, I think I'll be able to keep up with slightly more regular posting thanks to my easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy job at BlackRock.
Technically, it's a temp-to-hire - but since most of the "Corporate Services" staff (basically the reception/facilities management people like me) are Contingent Workers, and the guy ahead of me still has that title and has been here well over a year/year-and-a-half? Unless I move up, I don't see that status changing anytime soon. And this is high finance - an international company with offices in 28 countries, managing $3+ trillion in funds, which is not a field I'm well-versed in, nor super-interested - so I don't see myself suddenly being all high-powered career woman babbling about investments and stocks and mutual funds. But then, I never thought I'd babble about HVAC equipment and chillers and boilers either...so anything is possible, I guess! As one of my friends (who has a LOT of temp experience) put it, it's just a way for them to avoid having to pay out benefits. I can get medical insurance through my staffing agency, though. That's about it - no paid holidays, no paid time off, nada. Just the bare bones. Can I do without that for a year or two (the expected length of my term here)? Quite possibly. But I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket. At the very least, it's a good start to broadening my professional experiences and hireability in an industry that I *do* like. I'm leaning more and more towards Event Coordination or Hospitality for the long term.
There are things I really like about this job so far. Like my other receptionist temp job (right after I left McK, at Sabey Corporation), it's a relatively quiet job. The phones ring less at the front desk than they did in dispatch at McK - maybe 10 times all day. BLISS. And when they do, I transfer it to someone else to deal with, instead of being the end-point for all the nonsense that can come through. There are some specific processes that I've learned the basics of VERY quickly (my teammate, Andrew, has been training me and is very pleased and impressed), and now I'm just learning the nuances of it all. The people here have all been incredibly nice, and they all seem happy to be coming into work. I'll admit, I also like that this is a little more high-standards here - people dress nicely, even in business casual, far more than the sweatshirt & jeans crowd at McK. But again, this is high finance, not construction, so it's entirely different. Apples to oranges, you know. And of course, there's THE VIEW. Which I'll post here, in case you haven't seen it on my Facebook. It's stunning. BlackRock takes up the top 3 floors of the 3rd tallest building in Seattle! To go from the industrial district to the business district feels much more "me," and aspects of that make me happy.
There are some flip sides to it. I am commuting by bus, and that's... an adventure. I don't want to drive and find/pay for parking downtown - on a $15/hour salary, there's no way I can swing those costs! So, $5/day for round-trip bus fare it is! It does make me miss my nice 3-mile commute to McK, I tell ya! And I have to get up an hour earlier too, to catch the 7am bus to be here by 8am. But the commute itself is easy, because I'm not driving anywhere - I can nap, read a book, use my phone, etc. The bus people in the morning are nice people coming into town for work. Going home, I'm on 3rd Ave, which is basically an open-air drug market for all the crazies, drunks/druggies, and assorted homeless weirdos. And, my most hated part, the bus is ALWAYS late in the afternoon. The morning bus is on time, within a couple of minutes. Coming home, there is a bus every half an hour. When Bus A is 20-25 minutes late, then that's really just a whole new route at that point, one that I cannot plan for accordingly (like trying an alternate option). What's happening is that I'm not getting home until close to 6:30, and that's a 12-hour day for poor Teddy Bear, and his tiny bladder. So I've hired one of the neighborhood girls to come walk him once a day for $5/day, or $25/week. It's not much, and it makes me feel like a more responsible dog-mother. The commute is really the only thing I don't like so far, although I suspect I could get bored here soon, but there's opportunities to learn new things and advance, so we'll see!
[Sidenote: my dad has decided to express his opinion that it's "really spendy" to pay someone to walk the dog every day. I don't see my dad holding HIS pee for 12 hours! I just think it's inhumane, and not fair to Teddy Bear. An emergency trip to the vet for a bladder infection would be more spendy, no? Especially considering that I'd need to take unpaid time off work...]
I'm just glad to have a paycheck coming in for the foreseeable future. I ended up having to make a decision about what bills to pay - my only remaining student loan is in deferment through the end of the year, so that helps, but even though I've cut way down (and I don't spend a lot to begin with), I still couldn't afford my gas bill. So, I let it lapse, since it's in the middle of summer and I don't really need the heat. Unfortunately, my gas range/oven and my hot water tank are ALSO gas, so it's been a lot of microwaving and cold showers for me in the last week. But perhaps, it's a necessary lesson for me to learn. Which makes me sound like I'm embacing matyrdom, but I'm not. I just didn't want to ask for money from anyone else, and learn to deal with the problem like a mutherfuckin' adult. So I've since called the gas company now that I've gotten a paycheck, and I've made payment arrangements, and it was turned on yesterday.
I've also got a tentative roommate lined up (3rd times the charm, right???). She's coming up from California at the end of the month, and we sound pretty compatible. Fortunately, the room has been completely cleaned out, cleaned up, and is ready to go for a roommate to move right on in. She's planning on a year committment, so assuming all goes well with her, the job, etc. - I might be able to say things are going to be okay.
But you'll notice, I said "okay," not "great," not "perfect." I've had the rug yanked out from under so many times in the last ~5-6 months that it's getting very hard to trust the future. And I'm somebody who REALLY likes stability - in my home, in my relationships, in my job, etc. To have not known what's happening from week to week has been very character-building, I'm sure, but I fucking hated it. It stressed me out so badly, I've broken out in stress hives a couple of times. So I've got a job, yay - it's a temp job, though, with no guarantees. I've got a prospective roommate, yay - assuming she doesn't flake like the previous ones and I'm back to square one. It's just too hard to get overly emotionally invested in those things anymore because it's too hard when it fails.
And then there's the family thing...[to be continued, DUH DUH DUUUUUUH!]
Technically, it's a temp-to-hire - but since most of the "Corporate Services" staff (basically the reception/facilities management people like me) are Contingent Workers, and the guy ahead of me still has that title and has been here well over a year/year-and-a-half? Unless I move up, I don't see that status changing anytime soon. And this is high finance - an international company with offices in 28 countries, managing $3+ trillion in funds, which is not a field I'm well-versed in, nor super-interested - so I don't see myself suddenly being all high-powered career woman babbling about investments and stocks and mutual funds. But then, I never thought I'd babble about HVAC equipment and chillers and boilers either...so anything is possible, I guess! As one of my friends (who has a LOT of temp experience) put it, it's just a way for them to avoid having to pay out benefits. I can get medical insurance through my staffing agency, though. That's about it - no paid holidays, no paid time off, nada. Just the bare bones. Can I do without that for a year or two (the expected length of my term here)? Quite possibly. But I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket. At the very least, it's a good start to broadening my professional experiences and hireability in an industry that I *do* like. I'm leaning more and more towards Event Coordination or Hospitality for the long term.
There are things I really like about this job so far. Like my other receptionist temp job (right after I left McK, at Sabey Corporation), it's a relatively quiet job. The phones ring less at the front desk than they did in dispatch at McK - maybe 10 times all day. BLISS. And when they do, I transfer it to someone else to deal with, instead of being the end-point for all the nonsense that can come through. There are some specific processes that I've learned the basics of VERY quickly (my teammate, Andrew, has been training me and is very pleased and impressed), and now I'm just learning the nuances of it all. The people here have all been incredibly nice, and they all seem happy to be coming into work. I'll admit, I also like that this is a little more high-standards here - people dress nicely, even in business casual, far more than the sweatshirt & jeans crowd at McK. But again, this is high finance, not construction, so it's entirely different. Apples to oranges, you know. And of course, there's THE VIEW. Which I'll post here, in case you haven't seen it on my Facebook. It's stunning. BlackRock takes up the top 3 floors of the 3rd tallest building in Seattle! To go from the industrial district to the business district feels much more "me," and aspects of that make me happy.
There are some flip sides to it. I am commuting by bus, and that's... an adventure. I don't want to drive and find/pay for parking downtown - on a $15/hour salary, there's no way I can swing those costs! So, $5/day for round-trip bus fare it is! It does make me miss my nice 3-mile commute to McK, I tell ya! And I have to get up an hour earlier too, to catch the 7am bus to be here by 8am. But the commute itself is easy, because I'm not driving anywhere - I can nap, read a book, use my phone, etc. The bus people in the morning are nice people coming into town for work. Going home, I'm on 3rd Ave, which is basically an open-air drug market for all the crazies, drunks/druggies, and assorted homeless weirdos. And, my most hated part, the bus is ALWAYS late in the afternoon. The morning bus is on time, within a couple of minutes. Coming home, there is a bus every half an hour. When Bus A is 20-25 minutes late, then that's really just a whole new route at that point, one that I cannot plan for accordingly (like trying an alternate option). What's happening is that I'm not getting home until close to 6:30, and that's a 12-hour day for poor Teddy Bear, and his tiny bladder. So I've hired one of the neighborhood girls to come walk him once a day for $5/day, or $25/week. It's not much, and it makes me feel like a more responsible dog-mother. The commute is really the only thing I don't like so far, although I suspect I could get bored here soon, but there's opportunities to learn new things and advance, so we'll see!
[Sidenote: my dad has decided to express his opinion that it's "really spendy" to pay someone to walk the dog every day. I don't see my dad holding HIS pee for 12 hours! I just think it's inhumane, and not fair to Teddy Bear. An emergency trip to the vet for a bladder infection would be more spendy, no? Especially considering that I'd need to take unpaid time off work...]
I'm just glad to have a paycheck coming in for the foreseeable future. I ended up having to make a decision about what bills to pay - my only remaining student loan is in deferment through the end of the year, so that helps, but even though I've cut way down (and I don't spend a lot to begin with), I still couldn't afford my gas bill. So, I let it lapse, since it's in the middle of summer and I don't really need the heat. Unfortunately, my gas range/oven and my hot water tank are ALSO gas, so it's been a lot of microwaving and cold showers for me in the last week. But perhaps, it's a necessary lesson for me to learn. Which makes me sound like I'm embacing matyrdom, but I'm not. I just didn't want to ask for money from anyone else, and learn to deal with the problem like a mutherfuckin' adult. So I've since called the gas company now that I've gotten a paycheck, and I've made payment arrangements, and it was turned on yesterday.
I've also got a tentative roommate lined up (3rd times the charm, right???). She's coming up from California at the end of the month, and we sound pretty compatible. Fortunately, the room has been completely cleaned out, cleaned up, and is ready to go for a roommate to move right on in. She's planning on a year committment, so assuming all goes well with her, the job, etc. - I might be able to say things are going to be okay.
But you'll notice, I said "okay," not "great," not "perfect." I've had the rug yanked out from under so many times in the last ~5-6 months that it's getting very hard to trust the future. And I'm somebody who REALLY likes stability - in my home, in my relationships, in my job, etc. To have not known what's happening from week to week has been very character-building, I'm sure, but I fucking hated it. It stressed me out so badly, I've broken out in stress hives a couple of times. So I've got a job, yay - it's a temp job, though, with no guarantees. I've got a prospective roommate, yay - assuming she doesn't flake like the previous ones and I'm back to square one. It's just too hard to get overly emotionally invested in those things anymore because it's too hard when it fails.
And then there's the family thing...[to be continued, DUH DUH DUUUUUUH!]