Welcome To The Future
Happy New Years, everyone. Happy New Decade, even! 2010. I just have fun saying that number. I have a feeling this is going to be a really good year for us all.
Was it just me, or did '09 go by lightning fast? The way a person would normally feel about the changing of a month, or maybe the changing of a season, that's how I feel about this New Years. But enough happened this year to fill up at LEAST two. I know the last time I really updated with a blog(or "note" for those of you reading on Facebook) was way back in September. I'll skim through the events until that point and then I'll let y'all know what the happy haps is in the world of Nick.
Lets start with the last days of 2008. I was already pretty livid at my friend Joe'. You see, he got himself a girly-friend named Cathy, and she seemed like a pretty cool gal by way of his description of her. He makes a post about something, I can't remember now, and she comments with an icon from the show Firefly. I mention to her that her icon is awesome, as is the show, and we chit chat here and there. The quick version is, she makes posts about how she has this huge singing recital coming up that she needs to practice for. A handful of them. But she always has something she's doing instead of practicing. One of the last ones, if not the last one, was something like "I need to practice for my recital, but I can't stop playing my DS!!!" Eventually, her recital comes and goes and she makes a post about how she feels like she bombed in her performance. So I make an admittedly asshole comment saying "I guess next time you'll practice instead of play your DS!" But at the same time, its true, and I figure while everyone else is being all like "omg sorry baby gurl!" and what not, I'll be the one to take one for the team and mention to her that its kind of her own fault for neglecting her talent. I mean, the last thing I want is someone to waste their gift, and she's a gifted singer, Joe' shoed me plenty of videos of her on stage. So I told it like it was, and not surprisingly, she got maaaaaaaaaad.
I can't remember the exact details of this part, mostly because she blocked me from looking at any of her stuff so I can't go back and pull it up. But basically her, and two of her also artsy/stage girlfriends tried to chew me out and I chewed back until they gave up. I talked to Joe' like a man and apologized to him for accidentally upsetting his girlfriend. I explained to him what happened and told him I was sorry 'cause I know he'd have to hear drama and whatnot and that I'd go out of my way not to piss her off anymore. He took it well and was cool about it, so I thought the whole matter was behind us.
But then, one day he was talking to a friend about Samurai 7, which is one of the few animes left that I actually think is pretty good, despite certain stupid things about it, but that's niether here nor there, haha. Anywho, a friend of Joe' mentions who her favorite character was, and I post on it saying, no way its this beast, a giant steam powered robot Samurai that is really the soul of a 15 year old farmer kid with a heart of gold! Also, a massive chainsaw katana. Then out of nowhere Joe' makes this long speach. I'll actually transcribe it for you, because saved this part.
"Hey... stop commenting on other people's stuff. I'm not saying it will cause problems with everyone, or even most people, but there are quite a few that would find it awkward and intrusive for someone they don't know to comment on what they've said, just because both you and them know me.
Take Catherine for example. You friended her because she knew me, and you thought she seemed like an interesting person based on her journal entries, comments, and the fact that she had Firefly icons.... But, she only really accepted your freind request because she thought it might make me happy that she's trying to be friends with my friends.... In reality, though, she found it very odd and intrusive of you to act like you knew her, and to comment on her things, and you inevitably upset her with your comment, because you really did not know her, or know how she would react to what you had to say.
Again, I'm not saying that it will upset everyone, or even most people, but the potential amount of happiness that you stand to lose for not commenting on people's things, is FAR less than the amount of happiness that my other friends may potentially stand to lose because I chose to say nothing to you....
So, I ask you for the sake of preventing anything like the issue with Catherine again, please don't comment on my other friends' posts unless they initiate the conversation."
I was like, "Wow! Really?" I was so surprised. For one, I thought we were past this shit. I mean, I can understand his concern to an extent, but all I did was say "I like this character from this show". And he starts going on about potential loss and gain of happiness and all this other crap. And secondly, why can't people just tell the truth once and awhile? I was befriended even though she was offended by my very existance? How hard is it to be like "Hey, I appreciate you trying to be my friend, but I don't know you at all so its weird that we're talking so I'm not gonna do it anymore." That would have been fine! I would have said okay and this whole situation would have been avoided. But no, no one will ever say what they really want to say. But I did. I told her how it was and she got all pissed off and got her friends to chew me out for her. So maybe that's just how she is. I dunno. But that's how 2008 ended for me. That was literally New Years eve. Joe' and I haven't talked since, he's still a cool guy, but I'm not interested in being friends with anyone that wants to try to tell me who I can and can't talk to. I'm not down with that.
2009 didn't start out much better. By now you're all well versed on me vs Darnell, Bender and Pennington so I won't be dredging that back up. But that carried from January to about the middle of the year. These days, Bender and I are friends again. And walker and I have got it to a point where we can be cordial and there's really no more drama.
What else happened around that time, was that Nickles and Dimes, the corporation that owns the TILT stores that I was working for had decided that they didn't need employees anymore. Fired everyone that worked for me, and then cut my hours to 20 hours a week to service the machines and do the collections. At the time, my mom was working at an Arby's that's inside a Marathon gas station, and she was able to get me a job at the gas station side. I did both jobs for a couple of weeks until I was told that Marathon needed some more hours filled. This, combined with the fact that basically I was an on-call manager for TILT for anything that ever went wrong ever. I got called about once an hour from the mall, or my District Manager Mark. Someone lost money, they wanted me to go in. Someone made a mess, they wanted me to go in. They got a report of some game being vandalized or tampered with, off to the mall I went. Obviously you don't want kids fucking with your expensive ass arcade machines that were frail enough as it is and broke all the time even with proper operation. Makes sense, right? I mean... if only there was some way you could have someone there all the time to watch the machines.... NAH THAT'S SILLY THERE'S PRIZE VENDOR THAT NEVER WORKS ITS COOL! Oh yeah, that's the other thing. Their awesome machine that replaced all my employees was, to put it coloquially, a piece of fucking shit. It. Did. Not. Work. Tickets jammed in it every time, the prizes barely ever wanted to vend in the first place, and everything about it was a terrible process. That's what I was called in most for. Their machine jammed up its ticket slots and didn't work anymore. Oops! Anyway, like I said after two weeks I decided one steady job was enough for me, and gave TILT my goodbyes and got to steppin'.
I started doing my thing at Marathon, working 30-40 hours a week. To be honest, I really liked it. Gas Stations aren't as bad a place to work as you would expect, even with the block-rockin' hard-ass old lady boss Mary Ann rampaging around on any given day. That didn't bother me either, because she got stuff done, and it was never directed at me because I do my job and don't screw around. Ya dig? She was, in reality, a pretty nice lady. I mean, as nice as a person from Chicago CAN be, anyway. She saved my job on more than one occaision where the corporate d-bag Mike from Jacksonville wanted to fire me. The first major mistake I ever made at that place was on Easter.
Lemme start off by saying that I think people addicted to the Florida Lottery and scratch off tickets, are some how worse than any other gambling addict I've heard stories about. The people that come in and drop like, $100 on $1, $2, and $3 scratch off tickets at once are some goofy ass people. Take Bill for example. Bill is this hella old, ridiculously feeble man that looks like Dr. Wily lost all his money. He rides up on a bike once or twice a week, buys bricks of scratch off tickets, and rides off into the sunset to the 7-11 next door to do it all over again. He collects all these tickets from all over, scratches them all for what must take days, and then comes around to turn them all in. Redeeming 40+ lotto tickets for one person at a time is obnoxious. You inevitably get a line going, and there is NO pleasent line at a gas station. If someone has to wait behind even just one person for more than two seconds at a gas station, they get instant mad. I dunno what it is. But they do. I seen it. But I digress.
Basically on Easter, Bill came in with a brick of tickets and bought another brick afterwards. Long story short, I miscounted the tickets he bought, and it cost the store $36. Mike wanted to fire me for that. Mary Ann had my back. And that's where all of this was going.
But yeah, Marathon was going well. I got along with everyone. All of my co-workers felt like family to me. Cheri was awesome, April was awesome, Kim was amazing, Joe Turcotte was an old fuddy duddy, but he was cool too. The people over at Arby's were all pretty awesome, too. It was nice. Not the best job, definitely a monatary downgrade from the TILT days, but I liked what I did. And that mattered more than making money.
Middle of the year, Metrocon came and went. It was good. Got to see lots of cool things, and lots of cool people, and take my annual break from life even if for only a few days. Because that's really what its all about for me. Honestly, I don't even like anime much anymore. Maybe I grew out of it, or maybe the industry just really sucks now and nothing good ever comes out. Its all the same over-done crap lather rinse repeat. But I still go to Metrocon, because its what I've been doing for years and its a chance to get away from everything and just chill with my friends for a few days and not have any worries or responsabilities. I'm sure I can find better ways to get away from it all. But I like the idea that I've been to every single one of these, and now I feel like I gotta keep going no matter what. Plus its the only way I can ever see some people that I'd be sad if I couldn't hang out with anymore. Even if just for once a year.
After Metrocon I screwed up in a bad way at work. You all know about that deal. Sold beer to a person under 21 and paid the price for it. I got real lucky that A) I kept my job, and B) my fine was pretty low. It sucked, but I got through it. I got it paid off by the end of September, just by deadline, and that was that.
But things started turning around by this point. At the end of September/beginning of October, I finally moved out of home and Steve, Brittany and I all moved in together. Well, Steve was already there, because it was his house, but you know what I mean, haha. I never thought I'd find an affordable place to live on Marathon paychecks. But there it was. $400 a month for rent, $200 for electric, $20 for water, $120 for the Verizon we eventually switched to, and that's it? All Split between two people? Hell yeah! I swore up and down it was too good to be true. I almost turned it down just because I was assuming it would end in disaster JUST TO SPITE ME. But I thought about it, and thought about my resolution for 2009. My goal for 2009 was to move out of my parents house by time I was 23. 23 was the age I decided it was just too embarassing to still be living at home. And sure enough, a week and a half after turning 23 this grand opportunity presents itself. I decided that this wasn't just a coincidence, this was one of those moments where you're offered a choice that will change your life no matter what you do. One of those points where you look back and either go "That's what changed everything for me." or say "That was the opportunity that I let slip away and now look at me." So I jumped on it, and moved in. It started off good. I was barely making the house bills, but I was making them. But after the first string of that, Marathon out of nowhere started cutting my hours. I spent almost all of October working 12-18 hours a week. Just living day to day trying to make enough to just eat and still pay bills. My parents and my roomates thankfully had my back, and got me through these troubled times.
My brother, Jordan, told me about an opeining at Goodwill, where he works. Which doesn't SOUND like a very good job, but when you find out more about Goodwill, you realize that ain't so bad of a place to work at all. They ONLY hire at full time 40 hours a week. Their starting pay was in between Marathon and TILT pay. They offer full benefits and vacation time you can start using after only working there for three months. And they give roughly three times more vacation time per year than a normal business would. Sounds pretty fucking sweet now doesn't it? All of that for what? Slapping a price tag on some furnature and moving it into the sales floor? I can do that no problem. Well, its a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. So filled out my apps and did my interviews, and I thought everything was going good. Good enough where one push too far by Ginger(I don't feel like going back up to the Marathon section and putting in who Ginger is and how she ruined everything for everyone when she came back to work there. So the short version is she's the assistant manager at Marathon, she looks like Donkey Kong, and she really stuck a wrench in the gears over there, in my opinion.) had me put in my notice and get to steppin'.
UNFORTUNATELY, that was a stupid mistake on my part. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to already have your new job before you quit your old one. But I ignored my own rule because I was mad and I never got hired at Goodwill. So I went from barely making bills with crap pay, to no pay at all. I set out on a quest for employment, hitting up retail stores all over town because its the holiday season and I know they need at least seasonal help.
Side rant: I hate looking for work in this town. No one does pen and paper applications anymore. Its all "sit at our stupid kiosk and use are slow glitchy internet to fill out your information online!" Its really bad. I was at Sears doing theirs and half way through, it crashed. An hour of sitting down there was absolutely wasted. So I just went home. But I also realizes the one up-side to this. You can just look for work online and never leave your house to begin with. From home, using their online sites, I applied at 10 different stores in town without even getting up. Some of the stores even auto-scheduled interviews for me to go to. Of course, none of these worked out anyway. My phone's e-mail address was littered with messages from these companies too lazy to give a brotha a call telling me they weren't gonna hire me.
Once again, my dad had my back and had me go with him and help him do tile work. I hadn't done that in a quite a long time, so I was sure I was gonna screw everything up and be terrible help. Once again I almost didn't jump on it just because I was so worried about it, but I convinced myself that this is what I need to do, and there aren't any other options so I'd just have to suck it up and get it done. It was time to be a man and get 'r dun.
It turns out, maybe from the last couple of times I helped my dad on tile jobs, or maybe from just being older and smarter than I was then, that I wasn't so damned bad after all. Dad was doin' all the brain work with measuring and laying out a floor plan and figuring out where to cut what tiles and was setting them all down proper, meanwhile I was mixing the mud and cutting all the tile for him and getting him boxes of tile as he needed them. It was going pretty well, and I was proud that I was A) getting through manual labor easier than I thought I would, and B) I was working with my dad and we were having a good time doing it. You can't ask for more than that, honestly.
Funny anecdote: I was having a really crappy day on the site one day. pretty much all my worst fears of doing that job were coming to light one by one. When cutting tile, at the end they would randomly chip and break and ruin the whole piece. This wasn't happening before so I was so confused. I wasn't doing anything different than how I was just the day before, but I had to redo so much and it was all going bad. I was getting dissapointed and started blaming myself, and I could tell Dad was getting a little frustrated, too, just cause he wanted to get the job done and I was breaking tile. So he goes out there with me to cut a tile and we realize its the saw blade going dull on us. Which meant that we couldn't cut anymore tile for the day, which really sucked because we needed to get a lot more cuts done because we were getting close to the deadline the customer was coming home by. But we were also both really relieved because it wasn't me, it was the machine. It made me think about how much I've doubted myself my whole life, and how 2009, through its trials and tribulations, has helped me reaffirm confidense in myself and who I am. I fought through my doubts and came out better on the other side in every case. I stuck to my guns and stayed true to myself, and it all worked out in the end. And I was about to get another proof of that, I just didn't know it yet.
If you remember back to July 2008, I was in the market to buy a new car. I saved up a grand for a down payment and headed to Honda with the idea of buying a Honda Fit. Well, you already know that story. The point is, the awesome folks at Honda, i.e. RG and Jeannie Stathas, the infamous relatives of Dakota that Steve and I befriended years ago when Steve bought his Element. Anyway, the folks at Wilde Sun Honda have a house account at the Marathon gas station. Meaning, they go in to get gas with slips, and don't have to pay right then because we had a card just for them. What that also means, is that while I was working at Marathon I was able to meet most of the Honda employees, and catch up with RG and Jeannie all the time when they would come in.
It turns out, after three weeks of not working there, they realized I didn't work there anymore. They asked what happened to me, and Kim, who is the most awesome co-worker ever, told them how I left for bigger and better things, but it didn't work out and now I'm unemployed. RG got my number from Kim(Ginger refused to do it) and gave me a call.
Cut back to Dad and I after a rough day of tile work driving home sweaty and dirty and ready to go to sleep and I get a call from some unknown 941 number. I answered it and its RG, and he offers me a job. I went over there and talked to him and he offered me two positions. One was a new kind of sales position that has hourly wage. Basically(as he explained it), all this position has to do is be outside and talk to the customers about the cars and find out what they're interested in. They go through most of the motions to make a car sale, and at the end another employee comes in, closes the sale, gets his commission, and everybody wins. The other position is what's known as a Service Porter. When you take your car through the service drive to get your oil changes, your tire rotations, or your car is broke and just needs to be in the shop, the service porter covers up the inside of your car with various mats and bags to keep it clean, and drives it to the mechanics' areas and parks it for you. RG tells me he really thinks I could be good at the sales posision. He says that I have a great personality for it, the way I'm friendly with customers but not pushy, the way I'm nice to everyone etc. etc. I decided I'd shoot for it. He told me if I wanted to I had to cut my hair even shorter, and lose my goatee. Begrudgingly, I did just that. I walked around for a straight week with just a mustache, and I looked retarded. The sales interview didn't go so hot, mostly because, as you all know, I'm not really a car person. I never was. But, it wasn't the end of the road because the other position was still open. I got the job and I've been working at Wilde Honda ever since. I went from making $500 every two weeks at TILT, to making $300 every two weeks at Marathon, to making nothing, and then to making $500 a week at Honda. And to work for a company that both cares about its employees, and isn't in danger of immediately tanking the next day is a pretty nice change of pace.
And that's where I'm at now. Its a new year, new decade, with a new job, new goals, new dreams, new obstacles to overcome. Its a whole new game from this point on. And I think I'm failry confident that this is all going to go my way in the end. I'm almost at that point where I can stop catching up to life, and I can start living it. Welcome to the future.
--The Once and Future Nick
World can't hold me, too much ambition.
P.S.: I've dubbed today as binary day. 01/01/10.
Was it just me, or did '09 go by lightning fast? The way a person would normally feel about the changing of a month, or maybe the changing of a season, that's how I feel about this New Years. But enough happened this year to fill up at LEAST two. I know the last time I really updated with a blog(or "note" for those of you reading on Facebook) was way back in September. I'll skim through the events until that point and then I'll let y'all know what the happy haps is in the world of Nick.
Lets start with the last days of 2008. I was already pretty livid at my friend Joe'. You see, he got himself a girly-friend named Cathy, and she seemed like a pretty cool gal by way of his description of her. He makes a post about something, I can't remember now, and she comments with an icon from the show Firefly. I mention to her that her icon is awesome, as is the show, and we chit chat here and there. The quick version is, she makes posts about how she has this huge singing recital coming up that she needs to practice for. A handful of them. But she always has something she's doing instead of practicing. One of the last ones, if not the last one, was something like "I need to practice for my recital, but I can't stop playing my DS!!!" Eventually, her recital comes and goes and she makes a post about how she feels like she bombed in her performance. So I make an admittedly asshole comment saying "I guess next time you'll practice instead of play your DS!" But at the same time, its true, and I figure while everyone else is being all like "omg sorry baby gurl!" and what not, I'll be the one to take one for the team and mention to her that its kind of her own fault for neglecting her talent. I mean, the last thing I want is someone to waste their gift, and she's a gifted singer, Joe' shoed me plenty of videos of her on stage. So I told it like it was, and not surprisingly, she got maaaaaaaaaad.
I can't remember the exact details of this part, mostly because she blocked me from looking at any of her stuff so I can't go back and pull it up. But basically her, and two of her also artsy/stage girlfriends tried to chew me out and I chewed back until they gave up. I talked to Joe' like a man and apologized to him for accidentally upsetting his girlfriend. I explained to him what happened and told him I was sorry 'cause I know he'd have to hear drama and whatnot and that I'd go out of my way not to piss her off anymore. He took it well and was cool about it, so I thought the whole matter was behind us.
But then, one day he was talking to a friend about Samurai 7, which is one of the few animes left that I actually think is pretty good, despite certain stupid things about it, but that's niether here nor there, haha. Anywho, a friend of Joe' mentions who her favorite character was, and I post on it saying, no way its this beast, a giant steam powered robot Samurai that is really the soul of a 15 year old farmer kid with a heart of gold! Also, a massive chainsaw katana. Then out of nowhere Joe' makes this long speach. I'll actually transcribe it for you, because saved this part.
"Hey... stop commenting on other people's stuff. I'm not saying it will cause problems with everyone, or even most people, but there are quite a few that would find it awkward and intrusive for someone they don't know to comment on what they've said, just because both you and them know me.
Take Catherine for example. You friended her because she knew me, and you thought she seemed like an interesting person based on her journal entries, comments, and the fact that she had Firefly icons.... But, she only really accepted your freind request because she thought it might make me happy that she's trying to be friends with my friends.... In reality, though, she found it very odd and intrusive of you to act like you knew her, and to comment on her things, and you inevitably upset her with your comment, because you really did not know her, or know how she would react to what you had to say.
Again, I'm not saying that it will upset everyone, or even most people, but the potential amount of happiness that you stand to lose for not commenting on people's things, is FAR less than the amount of happiness that my other friends may potentially stand to lose because I chose to say nothing to you....
So, I ask you for the sake of preventing anything like the issue with Catherine again, please don't comment on my other friends' posts unless they initiate the conversation."
I was like, "Wow! Really?" I was so surprised. For one, I thought we were past this shit. I mean, I can understand his concern to an extent, but all I did was say "I like this character from this show". And he starts going on about potential loss and gain of happiness and all this other crap. And secondly, why can't people just tell the truth once and awhile? I was befriended even though she was offended by my very existance? How hard is it to be like "Hey, I appreciate you trying to be my friend, but I don't know you at all so its weird that we're talking so I'm not gonna do it anymore." That would have been fine! I would have said okay and this whole situation would have been avoided. But no, no one will ever say what they really want to say. But I did. I told her how it was and she got all pissed off and got her friends to chew me out for her. So maybe that's just how she is. I dunno. But that's how 2008 ended for me. That was literally New Years eve. Joe' and I haven't talked since, he's still a cool guy, but I'm not interested in being friends with anyone that wants to try to tell me who I can and can't talk to. I'm not down with that.
2009 didn't start out much better. By now you're all well versed on me vs Darnell, Bender and Pennington so I won't be dredging that back up. But that carried from January to about the middle of the year. These days, Bender and I are friends again. And walker and I have got it to a point where we can be cordial and there's really no more drama.
What else happened around that time, was that Nickles and Dimes, the corporation that owns the TILT stores that I was working for had decided that they didn't need employees anymore. Fired everyone that worked for me, and then cut my hours to 20 hours a week to service the machines and do the collections. At the time, my mom was working at an Arby's that's inside a Marathon gas station, and she was able to get me a job at the gas station side. I did both jobs for a couple of weeks until I was told that Marathon needed some more hours filled. This, combined with the fact that basically I was an on-call manager for TILT for anything that ever went wrong ever. I got called about once an hour from the mall, or my District Manager Mark. Someone lost money, they wanted me to go in. Someone made a mess, they wanted me to go in. They got a report of some game being vandalized or tampered with, off to the mall I went. Obviously you don't want kids fucking with your expensive ass arcade machines that were frail enough as it is and broke all the time even with proper operation. Makes sense, right? I mean... if only there was some way you could have someone there all the time to watch the machines.... NAH THAT'S SILLY THERE'S PRIZE VENDOR THAT NEVER WORKS ITS COOL! Oh yeah, that's the other thing. Their awesome machine that replaced all my employees was, to put it coloquially, a piece of fucking shit. It. Did. Not. Work. Tickets jammed in it every time, the prizes barely ever wanted to vend in the first place, and everything about it was a terrible process. That's what I was called in most for. Their machine jammed up its ticket slots and didn't work anymore. Oops! Anyway, like I said after two weeks I decided one steady job was enough for me, and gave TILT my goodbyes and got to steppin'.
I started doing my thing at Marathon, working 30-40 hours a week. To be honest, I really liked it. Gas Stations aren't as bad a place to work as you would expect, even with the block-rockin' hard-ass old lady boss Mary Ann rampaging around on any given day. That didn't bother me either, because she got stuff done, and it was never directed at me because I do my job and don't screw around. Ya dig? She was, in reality, a pretty nice lady. I mean, as nice as a person from Chicago CAN be, anyway. She saved my job on more than one occaision where the corporate d-bag Mike from Jacksonville wanted to fire me. The first major mistake I ever made at that place was on Easter.
Lemme start off by saying that I think people addicted to the Florida Lottery and scratch off tickets, are some how worse than any other gambling addict I've heard stories about. The people that come in and drop like, $100 on $1, $2, and $3 scratch off tickets at once are some goofy ass people. Take Bill for example. Bill is this hella old, ridiculously feeble man that looks like Dr. Wily lost all his money. He rides up on a bike once or twice a week, buys bricks of scratch off tickets, and rides off into the sunset to the 7-11 next door to do it all over again. He collects all these tickets from all over, scratches them all for what must take days, and then comes around to turn them all in. Redeeming 40+ lotto tickets for one person at a time is obnoxious. You inevitably get a line going, and there is NO pleasent line at a gas station. If someone has to wait behind even just one person for more than two seconds at a gas station, they get instant mad. I dunno what it is. But they do. I seen it. But I digress.
Basically on Easter, Bill came in with a brick of tickets and bought another brick afterwards. Long story short, I miscounted the tickets he bought, and it cost the store $36. Mike wanted to fire me for that. Mary Ann had my back. And that's where all of this was going.
But yeah, Marathon was going well. I got along with everyone. All of my co-workers felt like family to me. Cheri was awesome, April was awesome, Kim was amazing, Joe Turcotte was an old fuddy duddy, but he was cool too. The people over at Arby's were all pretty awesome, too. It was nice. Not the best job, definitely a monatary downgrade from the TILT days, but I liked what I did. And that mattered more than making money.
Middle of the year, Metrocon came and went. It was good. Got to see lots of cool things, and lots of cool people, and take my annual break from life even if for only a few days. Because that's really what its all about for me. Honestly, I don't even like anime much anymore. Maybe I grew out of it, or maybe the industry just really sucks now and nothing good ever comes out. Its all the same over-done crap lather rinse repeat. But I still go to Metrocon, because its what I've been doing for years and its a chance to get away from everything and just chill with my friends for a few days and not have any worries or responsabilities. I'm sure I can find better ways to get away from it all. But I like the idea that I've been to every single one of these, and now I feel like I gotta keep going no matter what. Plus its the only way I can ever see some people that I'd be sad if I couldn't hang out with anymore. Even if just for once a year.
After Metrocon I screwed up in a bad way at work. You all know about that deal. Sold beer to a person under 21 and paid the price for it. I got real lucky that A) I kept my job, and B) my fine was pretty low. It sucked, but I got through it. I got it paid off by the end of September, just by deadline, and that was that.
But things started turning around by this point. At the end of September/beginning of October, I finally moved out of home and Steve, Brittany and I all moved in together. Well, Steve was already there, because it was his house, but you know what I mean, haha. I never thought I'd find an affordable place to live on Marathon paychecks. But there it was. $400 a month for rent, $200 for electric, $20 for water, $120 for the Verizon we eventually switched to, and that's it? All Split between two people? Hell yeah! I swore up and down it was too good to be true. I almost turned it down just because I was assuming it would end in disaster JUST TO SPITE ME. But I thought about it, and thought about my resolution for 2009. My goal for 2009 was to move out of my parents house by time I was 23. 23 was the age I decided it was just too embarassing to still be living at home. And sure enough, a week and a half after turning 23 this grand opportunity presents itself. I decided that this wasn't just a coincidence, this was one of those moments where you're offered a choice that will change your life no matter what you do. One of those points where you look back and either go "That's what changed everything for me." or say "That was the opportunity that I let slip away and now look at me." So I jumped on it, and moved in. It started off good. I was barely making the house bills, but I was making them. But after the first string of that, Marathon out of nowhere started cutting my hours. I spent almost all of October working 12-18 hours a week. Just living day to day trying to make enough to just eat and still pay bills. My parents and my roomates thankfully had my back, and got me through these troubled times.
My brother, Jordan, told me about an opeining at Goodwill, where he works. Which doesn't SOUND like a very good job, but when you find out more about Goodwill, you realize that ain't so bad of a place to work at all. They ONLY hire at full time 40 hours a week. Their starting pay was in between Marathon and TILT pay. They offer full benefits and vacation time you can start using after only working there for three months. And they give roughly three times more vacation time per year than a normal business would. Sounds pretty fucking sweet now doesn't it? All of that for what? Slapping a price tag on some furnature and moving it into the sales floor? I can do that no problem. Well, its a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. So filled out my apps and did my interviews, and I thought everything was going good. Good enough where one push too far by Ginger(I don't feel like going back up to the Marathon section and putting in who Ginger is and how she ruined everything for everyone when she came back to work there. So the short version is she's the assistant manager at Marathon, she looks like Donkey Kong, and she really stuck a wrench in the gears over there, in my opinion.) had me put in my notice and get to steppin'.
UNFORTUNATELY, that was a stupid mistake on my part. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to already have your new job before you quit your old one. But I ignored my own rule because I was mad and I never got hired at Goodwill. So I went from barely making bills with crap pay, to no pay at all. I set out on a quest for employment, hitting up retail stores all over town because its the holiday season and I know they need at least seasonal help.
Side rant: I hate looking for work in this town. No one does pen and paper applications anymore. Its all "sit at our stupid kiosk and use are slow glitchy internet to fill out your information online!" Its really bad. I was at Sears doing theirs and half way through, it crashed. An hour of sitting down there was absolutely wasted. So I just went home. But I also realizes the one up-side to this. You can just look for work online and never leave your house to begin with. From home, using their online sites, I applied at 10 different stores in town without even getting up. Some of the stores even auto-scheduled interviews for me to go to. Of course, none of these worked out anyway. My phone's e-mail address was littered with messages from these companies too lazy to give a brotha a call telling me they weren't gonna hire me.
Once again, my dad had my back and had me go with him and help him do tile work. I hadn't done that in a quite a long time, so I was sure I was gonna screw everything up and be terrible help. Once again I almost didn't jump on it just because I was so worried about it, but I convinced myself that this is what I need to do, and there aren't any other options so I'd just have to suck it up and get it done. It was time to be a man and get 'r dun.
It turns out, maybe from the last couple of times I helped my dad on tile jobs, or maybe from just being older and smarter than I was then, that I wasn't so damned bad after all. Dad was doin' all the brain work with measuring and laying out a floor plan and figuring out where to cut what tiles and was setting them all down proper, meanwhile I was mixing the mud and cutting all the tile for him and getting him boxes of tile as he needed them. It was going pretty well, and I was proud that I was A) getting through manual labor easier than I thought I would, and B) I was working with my dad and we were having a good time doing it. You can't ask for more than that, honestly.
Funny anecdote: I was having a really crappy day on the site one day. pretty much all my worst fears of doing that job were coming to light one by one. When cutting tile, at the end they would randomly chip and break and ruin the whole piece. This wasn't happening before so I was so confused. I wasn't doing anything different than how I was just the day before, but I had to redo so much and it was all going bad. I was getting dissapointed and started blaming myself, and I could tell Dad was getting a little frustrated, too, just cause he wanted to get the job done and I was breaking tile. So he goes out there with me to cut a tile and we realize its the saw blade going dull on us. Which meant that we couldn't cut anymore tile for the day, which really sucked because we needed to get a lot more cuts done because we were getting close to the deadline the customer was coming home by. But we were also both really relieved because it wasn't me, it was the machine. It made me think about how much I've doubted myself my whole life, and how 2009, through its trials and tribulations, has helped me reaffirm confidense in myself and who I am. I fought through my doubts and came out better on the other side in every case. I stuck to my guns and stayed true to myself, and it all worked out in the end. And I was about to get another proof of that, I just didn't know it yet.
If you remember back to July 2008, I was in the market to buy a new car. I saved up a grand for a down payment and headed to Honda with the idea of buying a Honda Fit. Well, you already know that story. The point is, the awesome folks at Honda, i.e. RG and Jeannie Stathas, the infamous relatives of Dakota that Steve and I befriended years ago when Steve bought his Element. Anyway, the folks at Wilde Sun Honda have a house account at the Marathon gas station. Meaning, they go in to get gas with slips, and don't have to pay right then because we had a card just for them. What that also means, is that while I was working at Marathon I was able to meet most of the Honda employees, and catch up with RG and Jeannie all the time when they would come in.
It turns out, after three weeks of not working there, they realized I didn't work there anymore. They asked what happened to me, and Kim, who is the most awesome co-worker ever, told them how I left for bigger and better things, but it didn't work out and now I'm unemployed. RG got my number from Kim(Ginger refused to do it) and gave me a call.
Cut back to Dad and I after a rough day of tile work driving home sweaty and dirty and ready to go to sleep and I get a call from some unknown 941 number. I answered it and its RG, and he offers me a job. I went over there and talked to him and he offered me two positions. One was a new kind of sales position that has hourly wage. Basically(as he explained it), all this position has to do is be outside and talk to the customers about the cars and find out what they're interested in. They go through most of the motions to make a car sale, and at the end another employee comes in, closes the sale, gets his commission, and everybody wins. The other position is what's known as a Service Porter. When you take your car through the service drive to get your oil changes, your tire rotations, or your car is broke and just needs to be in the shop, the service porter covers up the inside of your car with various mats and bags to keep it clean, and drives it to the mechanics' areas and parks it for you. RG tells me he really thinks I could be good at the sales posision. He says that I have a great personality for it, the way I'm friendly with customers but not pushy, the way I'm nice to everyone etc. etc. I decided I'd shoot for it. He told me if I wanted to I had to cut my hair even shorter, and lose my goatee. Begrudgingly, I did just that. I walked around for a straight week with just a mustache, and I looked retarded. The sales interview didn't go so hot, mostly because, as you all know, I'm not really a car person. I never was. But, it wasn't the end of the road because the other position was still open. I got the job and I've been working at Wilde Honda ever since. I went from making $500 every two weeks at TILT, to making $300 every two weeks at Marathon, to making nothing, and then to making $500 a week at Honda. And to work for a company that both cares about its employees, and isn't in danger of immediately tanking the next day is a pretty nice change of pace.
And that's where I'm at now. Its a new year, new decade, with a new job, new goals, new dreams, new obstacles to overcome. Its a whole new game from this point on. And I think I'm failry confident that this is all going to go my way in the end. I'm almost at that point where I can stop catching up to life, and I can start living it. Welcome to the future.
--The Once and Future Nick
World can't hold me, too much ambition.
P.S.: I've dubbed today as binary day. 01/01/10.