On Making Apple Pie

I saw giant piles of apples at the grocery store the other day and I decided that what I wanted more than almost anything was apple pie. Not just a regular pie, but a mile high apple pie.

When I make apple pie, I like to get the apples ready first so they can sit for at least 90 minutes gaining flavor.

Here's what I used:

Sugar
Flour
Lemon Juice (I forgot to buy a lemon. The bottle works well, though.)
Nutmeg
Ground Cloves
Cinnamon
 Apples

I used three Lady Alice, three Honeycrisp, and  nine Granny Smiths. The variety of apples was to help vary the texture and sweetness within the pie when it finished cookin.

The contraption is an apple peeler/slicer:

Nothing gets apples prepped for pies faster. Setup, peeling/slicing, and cleanup took about twenty minutes. (You can choose if you want the apple peeled, too. Oh, it's perfect if you're going to dehydrate apples because it takes out the core and all the slices are uniform.)

I like to use a bowl with a lid so I can shake the bejesus out of it.

I used a teaspoon of the nutmeg, a teaspoon of ground cloves, a tablespoon of cinnamon (I like cinnamon in my apples, most recipes don't call for this much.), two tablespoons of flour (this helps thicken the juices the apples are going to let go), two tablespoons of lemon juice (which was too much; one would have been better), and one cup of sugar.

After the shake-up, it's time for the dough for the pie crust:

Flour
Sugar
Salt
Shortening
Butter
Vodka
Water

I use the America's Test Kitchen Foolproof Pie Dough, because I need the foolproof part and it's delicious. I'm not going to write the recipe out because they don't give it away for free. It's worth the price, though,

Also, I forgot to take pictures of the mixing process (I'm new to trying to blog cooking), but here are pictures of the only dishes I dirtied and the dough in balls ready to be put in the fridge for at least an hour:

After at least an hour, I pulled out the larger of the two balls, rolled it out, then put it in a 9-inch pie pan, mine is Pyrex.

After filling the bottom, I rolled out the top, laid it over the pie, trimmed and pinched the edges, and cut some slits in the top to let the steam out.

The pie went into a preheated 425 degree (F) oven on a half-sheet on the bottom rack of the oven. The half-sheet went into the oven as it preheated so it was nice and hot. This is to help the bottom of the pie cook a little bit faster so it won't be soggy when the pie is finished.

It cooked for 45 minutes and came out like this:

Usually, I use some melted butter on the top then sprinkle cinnamon/sugar. This time I used an egg wash and then cinnamon/sugar. It's pretty obvious where the wash was too thick and the cinnamon/sugar was too thin.

Here's the first slice, after it rested for an hour:

The dough was amazing. In the past I've rolled this recipe out several times and it's always come out flaky and tender and delicious. The apple had a great texture, but was a little tart; too much lemon juice added to the apples. I like tart, Granny Smiths are my favorite apples, but others would have liked it to be a more sweet.

Still, it was devoured pretty quickly.

After I put the pie into the oven, I collected the scraps of dough, formed them into a new ball, and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then I rolled the dough out, smeared melted butter all over it, and sprinkled cinnamon/sugar everywhere.

Then I rolled it up into a log and sliced that log into half inch pieces. After the pie came out, the mini-cinnamon rolls went into the oven for 13 minutes. Which was probably two minutes too long. Some got a little too browned, but they all tasted great.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

I'm not one for hope. I want everything to turn out well, but I don't really believe that things will turn out well. I'm a pessimist.

I've been trying to get a promotion to an analyst for a long time. Five years now. I interview. I'm told they'll make the decision in two weeks. After four weeks I hear that I didn't get the job or I never hear anything at all.

So, when someone who used to work with me -- someone who knows how hard I work, someone who knows I can learn how to do anything, someone who knows me -- became the head of the personnel department, I let hope in.

She told me that there were going to be several analyst positions coming open in personnel early on. The day before the positions were opened for applications, she called me to tell me to get my application in. After I turned the application in, she e-mailed me to tell me that she got it, but that interviews wouldn't be for a while because she had to get approval to unfreeze the positions.

Great, I thought, at least one of the positions was going to be mine.

Now, there's a bit more to this story. Since so many people are getting laid off, or potentially laid off, they are getting letters to help encourage personnel departments to interview them. And, although I should have gotten one in this most recent round, I fell through the cracks and am once again without a letter.

I know that I have been over looked for at three interviews, two of which were at my current level, because I didn't have a letter. One of the jobs I would have been perfect for because it's what I did while I was in the nursing department.

Still, I had hope. That former co-worker was looking out for me.

Until today.

Today she wrote to me and asked me if I had one of those letters. She can only interview people who have those letters.

I cannot be interviewed.

FUCK!

And so, I continue to be stuck where I am. Never to be promoted. Never to see my pay increase. Never to get anywhere near my abilities in my work.

If I thought I was at all a useful human being I'd probably quit my job. Too bad I'm not useful. Too bad past experience has shown me that I can't be hired anywhere.

Too bad...

Lunch

Earlier today, my supervisor walked into the office to invite me and
my co-worker out to lunch tomorrow as some Chinese place. I wanted to
look at my co-worker with eyes asking, "What the hell is going on
here? Is this a trick?" I didn't look over, though. I looked straight
ahead and for a solid thirty seconds the room was silent.

Finally my co-worker said she'd go and then I said okay.

We still don't know what this lunch is about. We don't know if she's
treating us and we each plan on having cash because we figure she
won't be paying. We also don't know if she'll expect us to make up the
time used for lunch at the end of the day.

I think we'll have to stay late. On a Friday. Joy.

Maybe Again

I have an hour left at work and my supervisor has, as of last week,
returned the interblurbs to me. What to do, eh?

I'm just doing this through Gmail. I don't know how much this place of
employment tracks internet usage. I'm not afraid of them seeing that
I'm using my personal e-mail, but I'd rather they didn't know I was
using Blogger. I suppose that this level of computer paranoia isn't
normal at other work places, is it? I hope not.

Anyway...

A couple of weeks ago, NPR's Morning Edition did a series on early
thirty-somethings/late twenty-somethings and how that segment of
society is becoming less religious. Most of them still consider
themselves spiritual, but they aren't affiliated with any religious
sect. (They called the series "Losing Our Religion" because alluding
to R.E.M. is totally the way to nail this cross section of the US.)

The whole thing was fascinating. It seemed to me that the young-ish
people they spoke with were all once upon a time religious, but ended
up leaving it for various reasons and now they're all spiritually
adrift. Some were agnostic. I don't remember any atheists in the
group. Many of them, though, seemed to still believe in something
more, but didn't have a way to practice it. (I don't think I phrased
that correctly.)

The whole thing kept me thinking about my own religiousness. I wasn't
raised religious. My parents' had me and my brothers say an altered
version of the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep prayer each night, but it
was so different that I was shocked when I learned the real words. For
a while my parents took us to a Unity Church, but they stopped going
once the (pastor? preacher?) woman who led the service moved on to a
different community and the Sunday school wasn't about worship; I
mostly remember coloring pictures and walking around the duck pond. I
went with a friend to the Catholic Church a couple of times and one of
my brothers had some close friends who were Mormons, but we never
joined a religion.

For a long time, though, I never discounted joining a religion. I
found the idea of rebirth fascinating. Reincarnation was sort of scary
because you became something or someone other than who you were before
you died, but your essence went on living and learning from all the
experiences in the past and maybe, just maybe, there could come a
point when you become aware of all the yous that you have been and
embrace the greater universe. When I was little Heaven seemed like the
best choice. You were you forever in a place that was nice where
people were nice and everything was good. The thing that appealed most
to me was that I'd remain who I was. Which is funny because ultimately
it was a discussion about Heaven that turned me off from religion.

I was in my first year of college and had no friends except for the
one who had been my friend in high school. He was, and is, pretty
Christian. Not in your face about it, but he believes in Christ and
all that comes with that belief (except for a lot of the hate, his
belief in Christ encourages love and trust). I'd eat many meals with
him so I wasn't always alone, but on Fridays he had his prayer group.
15 or 20 people would go to dinner the head off to read and discuss
all the things they'd just read. To not be alone, I sat with all of
them.

One day, before dinner, one of the guys, he lived in my building and
was a good person, asked me if I'd like to join their group. I said no
and we started talking. He questioned and I answered but didn't always
have an answer. I questioned and he answered and always had an answer.
Eventually, we started to discuss Heaven and he explained what it was
like and how I would always be happy in part because the bad people
would be left out. I asked how if someone I cared about was not in
Heaven for being a non-believer I could ever be happy there. He said
it wouldn't matter to me because I'd be so happy bathed in God's light
that I would never even notice people missing. And this appalled me. I
would be so happy that I wouldn't notice a loved one missing?

I asked him if Heaven was like a drug that created such bliss that
nothing except that feeling was all I craved.

He didn't have an answer. I told him that I wouldn't want to be in a
place where I would lose myself like that and didn't go to dinner with
my friend that night.

That was the moment that I knew I'd never be a "true" Christian and
started me on the path of not wanting to become religious.

Hourly Comic Day 2013

How I spent my yesterday:

Crimson Velour

I made that Red Velvet Cake.

The cake is really good. The frosting is too sweet, for me, and turned out wrong. I must have screwed up because it's really runny.

If I have my choice, I'll stick to the Devil's Food.

YOGURT!

Along with that cake yesterday, I decided to make yogurt in the slow cooker. I did it over night.

 

This is what the cooker looked like this morning after a couple little taster scoops. I'm not a fan of plain yogurt. I wanted to add canned peaches, but this yogurt was too runny to add anything juicy to it.

I put a clean dishtowel in a colander and put that over a bowl and let it drain in the fridge all day.

 That's what it looked like when I pulled it out of the fridge tonight. You can see the rings where the yogurt started.

It's the consistency of sour cream and sort of tastes like it, too.

 There were at least four cups of water in that bowl.

On the left is starter for next time. On the right I will mix in my can of peaches.

Like the recipe says, I used a half gallon of milk and it gave a half gallon of yogurt. After draining I have a lot less yogurt, but it's at a consistency I really like. I think that on the weekends I could do two batches a day and get a lot made. Plenty for the whole week.

Of course, since this isn't my house I don't think I should go this crazy, but in the future...

Hooray for cooking!

Because I Wanted To

I made cake.

 

It's devil's food with a butter cream frosting and I made it without a package mix. The cake is chocolaty and moist and so dark it's nearly black and quite wonderful. The frosting okay, but next time I think I'll use a bitter-sweet chocolate chip so it's not quite so sweet. (I used Alton Brown's recipe. He's my cooking hero. I hope he makes some Good Eats specials soon, since he stopped making the show.)

I really like baking things and cooking things. I'd do it all the time if I had the time an the money. The problem is that I don't really want to eat much of what I make (especially full cakes), so that sort of stops me from going crazy. I guess.

Still, I'm bought most of the the ingredients for a red velvet cake. I'll save that one for Christmas. Maybe a little green coloring in the frosting for the holiday?

There'll be pictures.

On How To Be Brave

To the best of my knowledge, there are three place a one, such as myself, can work for this State, but not actually work in The State. Houston, Chicago, and New York are where these jobs are located.

Four or five months ago, I did a phone interview to work in Houston. A week after that I was offered a face-to-face interview for the position. I didn't take the interview. I was interested, but at the time I had done a couple of interviews for promotion that I thought went well, so I turned down the second interview. At the time I was right. The position I interviewed for was the same position I'm in now. I would have been doing more receptionist work rather than clerical or analyst work and there was no room for promotion at this job unless I wanted to go back to school and learn some skills that I don't want to have. (Although I know I could learn them and then use them fairly well.) There was no money for moving and there was no pay increase.

Four weeks ago a position came available in the New York office. Again, not a promotion. But in New York. The office is in Manhattan. No moving expenses, but the pay goes up at least $350. And it's in New York City, which is one of the most amazing places I have ever seen.

Yes, I hate living in cities. I hate the idea of large cities, but I wouldn't have to live in the city. There are buses and subways and trains and plenty of places in all directions where the population density is at a more reasonable level for my sanity. For a week after the job was posted online I looked up rents in the city and its Burroughs. I looked at Long Island and New Jersey. I looked upstate thinking that it would be wonderful to be able to say I lived in New Rochelle. I found places with potential. Places I think I could live.

But...

I hadn't sent the application. Sure, there were two weeks to get it out, but I hadn't sent it. Not because it's not a promotion. I've basically given up on that dream because there's no chance of a promotion for me where I am and the dozen or so interviews I've gone out on for a promotion have done nothing for me. I figure the best way for me to get a promotion is to get somewhere at my level and show them that I am so much more than just a file clerk or a receptionist. Out in New York I would have been at the same level with no real chance for promotion, but I'd be in New York City where so many things that I like are made or come from. Where there are more plays going on each week than I could afford to see in a year. Museums, publishing houses, food from around the world, music everywhere all the time if you look for it. Just the place for an aspiring hipster to be.

Three weeks ago, on Monday, I got out of my car and started to walk across the parking lot thinking about how I have to get the application out that afternoon and suddenly I knew that I wasn't going to send that application off, ever. I stopped and stood in the middle of the lot because even though I knew that I wasn't going to send the application in, I didn't know why. I had to figure out why. I stood there and thought about it.

I'd be living in a city, a gigantic city, where I didn't know, really know, a single person, 3000 miles away from those I do know. Now that wouldn't be a big deal because I've lived in cities where I don't know anyone and been okay, but it's always been in this state. Always close enough to people I know that if something went terribly wrong they'd be close enough that they could help.

The normal argument would be that I'd meet people and make friends. The problem is that, when it comes to me, it won't happen. I don't know how to make friends.

Okay, so logically I know how to make friends. You meet people who share your interest. You get to know each other and enjoy spending time together. Eventually you start hanging out talking about nothing, maybe sharing a meal or going to see a band at a bar or maybe looking at some art. You call or text or e-mail to set up one of these things and you go and you laugh and fun is had. Friends. My problem is I don't know how to go anywhere after the "meet people" stage.

Seriously, I don't know how to do or what to do anything after I meet people. I go to things where people share my interests and sometimes, rarely, I even talk with people I don't know. And then the talking stops. I don't know how to continue after there's a pause because I don't believe that the person I've been speaking with actually wants to speak with me. Crazy, I know, because we were just speaking and 95% of the time I'm not the person who initiates the conversation. Still, I have a hard time imagining. There's also the fear of becoming one of those people who become too much.

If you've ever been to a comic shop you know the kind of guy, and it's always been a guy to me, I'm going try to describe. It's the guy who knows you're interested in comics so you must be interested in the comics he's interested in and he will, if he can, corner you among the long boxes and tell you everything about what he likes and why the stuff your looking at is either brilliant or crap. If you're lucky enough to not get cornered he'll follow you around the shop. When you tell him that you don't like the Punisher because you don't think he's a hero the guy doesn't stop talking about the Punisher because the Punisher is who he wants to talk about. There are only two ways to shake the guy: one, pawn him off on someone else, someone else who was hopefully stupid enough to comment about the Punisher while the guy was blathering on. Or, two, pay for your comics and leave the store.

I try really hard to not be this guy because I know that he's in me. I can feel it every time someone at work talks about a TV show or movie that I like. I can go on and on about the story and the directorial choices and the writing and the acting because I like this stuff and I want to have a conversation about these things. Example: The Hunger Games movie came out and one of the women in my office saw it and liked it and we started to have a very surface-y conversation about it, but then I said despite all the violence I liked how the director would pull the camera away from the actual blood-and-guts moments leaving it to the audience to imagine how horrific the act is. There was a huge pause because this woman doesn't think of movies in the same way I do (just like I don't think of horses in the same way she does) and our conversation was essentially dead. I could have gone on. I wanted to go on. I didn't go on, though, because I don't want to be that kind of guy. He's in there. I know that because he's come out on occasion, fortunately it's mostly been with family and they just either put up with it or get into a conversation with me. I fear turning off potential kindred spirits by doing it, though.

To get back to the point, I wouldn't have anyone in New York. I wouldn't meet anyone in New York. Five years of not making any friends in North Bay proved that. And the vast majority of the time I'm fine with it. Being 3000 miles away from anyone I could depend on in a crisis, even if they have three hour drive, wouldn't work. I'm not going to change. I don't really want to change. I'm afraid that I can't change.

When I realized that, I could walk again. That afternoon I posted to Facebook: "I can state this with certainty: I am a coward." because being brave isn't doing the things other people are afraid to do, but pushing through your fear and trying to do the things you're afraid to do.

It Begins, Again

This morning, at work, I realized that I finished my seventh year working for The State yesterday. Today began my eighth year.

I am glad to say that I did not cry, though I felt like it for a while.

Prop is Me

At work last week, I got to be a prop.

We're using an Access based database to schedule our doctors. An Access based database that can't run on anything but Access 2007, requires each person to overwrite on part of it individually to update, and that doesn't communicate with the two other databases being used to schedule the same people to see the other kinds of doctors. It's not great, but having it is better than not, trust me.

Anyway, the down the road plan is to have the scheduling programs for the Medical, Dental, and Mental Health departments talk to each other so we won't accidentally schedule guys for appointments at the same time on the same day. (I always knew this problem existed, but I haven't heard too many complaints. Maybe we're just not told because it's too late by the time it happens and they know there's nothing we can do about it? That doesn't seem likely, though, because the doctors in all the departments like to complain to schedulers. Like we're the ones who make policy, rather than just follow it.) Each department, however, is making their own system on their own timeframe.

Ours is coming along, but the guys building it, and they are all guys, wanted to come and see how the current database is used and what we like and don't like about it. We were their first stop because a lady who works in our department, but not the supervisor even though she should be, pestered and pushed for the department to create the database we're currently using. So, as long as she's in our department she'll probably be on all the computer committees. We were the first stop and she elected me to show the guys how we do it.

Me. I've been with this department for about ten months. The person at my level who's closest to me has been with the department for nearly four years. I was flattered. Her choosing me showed that she had confidence in me. And that's nice because, unlike our supervisor, she smart, pays attention, thinks before she acts, and doesn't praise people lightly.

She told me that my job would be to sit there, do my work, and answer questions. Sounded okay to me. When the time came, I did the job and did the job well. I know enough about computers that the techie guys didn't feel like they had to treat me like a baby and I could suggest, in general terms, how to maybe do certain  thing in what will be a web browser based system. When people got hungry and my part was over, almost all of the guys came over to me and thanked me for what I did and told me that I did a great job.

Excellent, right? So what about the prop thing? Well, at the time of the thanks, I was very pointedly not invited. Not "pointedly" as in they were rude about it, but "pointedly" as in there was never even a thought that I was a person who might want lunch out. Therefore, prop. An inhuman object. I'm not saying that I would have gone to lunch because I probably wouldn't have and I was glad that I didn't have to do my sheepish and uncomfortable, for me, "no thanks." Still, it would have been nice to have been thought of as a human, you know?

Oh, well.

On the bright side, the next morning, on her day off, the not supervisor called me to tell me how wonderful I was. She said that she was surprised at all the work I did. She was surprised at the things I knew how to do, even though they weren't my duty. And she was surprised that I knew as much about how and why our database worked the way it works. She thanked me again and told me that all the guys kept saying how impressed they were with the job I did. (Which makes me wonder if my fat face and body makes people just assume I'm stupid somehow. Maybe I look like I have Downs Syndrome?) Of course, she's not my supervisor and she's in no position to help me professionally.

There is hope, though. A supervisory position in the personnel office has come open. She has applied for it. She deserves the position and they'd be stupid not to put her there. An analyst position or two has come open out there, too. With luck they'll hire her before interviewing for the analyst and she'll remember that I am a hard and conscientious worker.

With my luck... Let's just say that I've not gotten hired three out of three interview since last I've written about work.

Too Damned Long

When I first saw The Avengers a few weeks ago I walked out of the theater having enjoyed myself, but by the end I was tired and, horrible as it is to say, bored. The end is pretty much non-stop action, how could anyone get bored? My theory was that the final fight was too damned long. Today I put that to the test and I was right.

See, the movie's built up on exciting moments. They start out, relatively, small, after that opening sequence. The opening is a teaser, though, and announces right off what kind of movie this is. Then the film slows down. We meet our main heroes, minus the one were were already introduced to, in short vignettes so we understand who they are and what they want. From there the action slowly gets bigger, with nice breathers in between so the audience can relax and laugh which should help to clean the mental palette for the next action set piece. Joss Wheadon, who wrote and directed this movie, understands that the brain needs the break, that's why all his actiony/horrory TV shows used comedy to help break up the tension, if only for a second, to make room in the brain for more excitement. The action also get longer as the movie goes on, but it's short enough that it didn't wear me out.

Until that last fight.

**Here's where I get a little spoilery, in case you haven't seen the movie yet and still care.**

I had my watch with me and turned on the stopwatch to time the fight. I started when the first aliens came through the portal, that seemed a fair place. The specifics aren't really important because I was engaged. I was on the streets with Captain America, flying through the city with Ironman, and smashing armored fish/lizard things with the Hulk. And then, suddenly, I wasn't.

I looked down at my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Cap was just about to rush in to rescue people who had been cornered in a bank, or whatever, by aliens. Here's where this fight scene became agonizing. The punching, shooting, zapping, and punching became boring. Yeah, that Hulk scene with Loki made me laugh, but that was way past the point where I wanted something else.

I just thought of the end of Return of the Jedi, where it bounces between the three fights: one on Endor, one around the Death Star, and one in the Emperor's throne room. It's long, but all the fights have such different tones and tickle different parts of my brain that it doesn't get boring. It also cuts from the exciting World War II style space battle to the point on Endor where it look like the Rebels have lost and seem to be surrendering then cuts to Luke and Vadar fighting. Did you see the break my brain got there? During those few minutes on Endor! That sort of pacing kept my mind shifting gears kept my brain active and attentive.

The closest thing to a break during that last fight in The Avengers is when Fury is talking to those shadowy faces. The problem is that it comes to late. Just a few minutes after Fury's conversation that professor doctor guy who was in the Thor movie wakes up and that's where I hit stop on my watch because I correctly remembered that there was no other alien fighting after that. Twenty-six minutes and one second of fight. Ten minutes too much for my brain, apparently.

The movie's still a lot of fun, but the final fight is so relentless.

And I can't even say how I might fix it. My gut reaction is shorter, make it shorter because there are no good subplots to cut away to. At that point the helicarrier is safe and they'd already killed the best character to come out of these linked movies, so I don't want to go there. The best New Yorkers are for is short reaction shots to the horror around them and that's the only way they're useful to the movie.

Maybe the next one will leave me feeling energized in the end rather than bored. I'm rooting for you Mr. Wheadon. We all are.

"What are we going to do without you?"

To get it out of the way, I have been told that I "suckle at the government's tit."

I've worked for the State as a low level office drone for almost seven years. For most of my years I've pushed paper and answered phones. I've done piddly-ass work so that the "real" work, the "important" work, can be done by those higher up.

I used to work for a different department, but there was no place to go there. My boss told me that. So, I moved where I thought there would be opportunities. I moved where the money was. A month later, the money was gone and so were the opportunities. Plus, I hated, HATED my boss and the work that I was doing. It wore me down.

So, even though I had sent out a bunch of applications for a position that's a step higher I took a job at the same level within the same department, but with a different supervisor. Stress level, better. Sleep, no longer full of creepy dreams about babies. It took 13 months to get out of it, though.

After a couple of month of working in the new position, sometime in January, my boss took me aside and basically asked me what the hell I was doing at my level. I told her that I'd been trying to get a different job, but that the few interviews I'd gone to hadn't done anything for me. I don't think I screwed any of them up, just got the feeling that the people I interviewed with wanted to promote from within rather than give the fat, geeky guy a chance. (Yes, I am bitter. Why do you ask?) Still, I told her that I was trying, just nothing much was coming from all the applications I'd sent out.

She gave me a speech about how she supports upward mobility blah, blah, blah, and that I should keep trying.

Of course, I have been trying. In the past three months I've sent out over 50 applications. (I know because it takes two friggin' stamps to send an application and I've use up a roll of 100 and then some.) Most of them have been for the promotion, a couple for the same level. Last week was the first interview I had since March (February?). It was for my current level, but I need to keep in practice and it's for a place that will, eventually, be interviewing for that next level. I thought it would be good to get my face out there.

The interview went well. I made the panel laugh. I had a good story about teamwork. I took a half hour when they had penciled in 15 minutes and they didn't try to hurry me. I had a decent answer to the "best and worst" qualities question. I watched them fill up their papers with my answers. I was full of very specific questions about where the job will be. I felt good. (Of course, I've felt good about all the interviews I've had in the past year.)

Today, my supervisor came and told me that she was called for a reference check. Then she says, "I don't think we'll be able to get along without you."

A little later the second in command, a woman who I respect and admire, told me about the reference check and asked, "What will we do without you?"

After the staff meeting, where I take minutes, I told my boss not to worry about the room because I'd already been in contact with the people in charge and I'd taken care of it. She said, "I don't think we can let you go." Sure, she was smiling when she said it, but she said it. I was glad the call came in before the meeting.

While I was cleaning up my office a different supervisor, not in charge of me, but in charge of people I work with, told me that I can't leave. They need me.

The thing is, if offered, I probably won't take the job. I want, and finally believe that I deserve, a promotion. I know that I'm a problem because I don't understand the game. I don't know how to get my nose all brown. (I have a problem of answering the questions I'm asked honestly.) I don't want to move two hours away for no movement in my employment, start a lease, then get an interview and an offer from a step up that's in another town entirely. I can't afford two leases. If I could I wouldn't be looking for a step up.

Of course, this leads to the question of why stick with this whole system, right? Well, I've never been hired by a place that wasn't desperate for someone until this last move. My first job in college I got because two of their staff members quit during the first week of school. My next job was at a Starbucks that was opening and they only started interviewing people a month before the opening and we were understaffed when we opened. (I haven't had many jobs. I stay where I am for a while.) When I got hired by the state the office had been short five people and were eager to finally get staffed. When I moved to this department they were interviewing for three positions and, I found out later, only interviewed six people.

Plus, I'm vested in the pension program. Sure, I have more than thirty years until I retire and by then the more conservative elements may finally have their way and eliminate the pension because those of us in the state obviously people like me don't work, but I'm vested. Every year I get closer to a retirement that a person can actually live off of and medical benefits that won't punish me for going to the doctor as I age. These are the reasons I was willing to work for the state in the first place.

None of that matters, though. What matters is how my coworkers, people who have told me that I do good work, that I should be working at a higher level, are trying to make me feel guilty for wanting to move on while attempting to make it sound like a complement.

It, literally, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I felt fine until my boss ended our first conversation with  "I don't think we'll be able to get along without you."

And so I end my rant. I apologize, but I needed to get it out there. To ask if it's just me being a paranoid asshole or what. I just don't know anymore.

Thanks.

A Talk at Work

We started by talking about the change in attitude by the dental people who work third watch. She said she remembered when everyone was fairly happy and got along and worked together. I asked her when she thought the attitude changed. She said the major difference happened in February when just about everyone on third watch thought they were going to be laid off and then in March when one of the assistants actually was let go. Then she moved into how much it bothers her when people say that there’s no work out there because she’s worked two jobs for a large part of her working life. “There are jobs,” she said, “if people are willing to look for them.”

“The ones that are easiest to get are at places like KFC,” I said, “where the turnover is high. How can you support a family when you’re getting paid just above minimum wage?”

“Inflation’s a problem,” she said.

I agreed.

“It got so bad,” she said, “because all those women wanted to go to work in the ‘50s.”

I was shocked and a little bit outraged. To blame increased cost of living on women working? Absurd. Right?

I didn’t say that though. I just listened. She believes that because women started to work and households started to earn more money that when they started to spend that money prices on everything were raised. “It’s supply and demand,” she said. “If people weren’t willing to pay the higher prices then prices would go down.”

“But,” I said, “almost all families were single income until the mid ‘80s.” -- I don’t actually know if this is true. It sounds true enough, though. -- “By the mid ‘90s most were double income families. Most families can’t survive comfortably, or at all, without two people working.”

“They could if prices go down.”

“But they’re not going down, even during the mess that’s been going on for the last five years.”

“Prices are going down,” she said.

“What? Like car prices?” I asked.

She said that car prices are going down because so many people have started to buy used cars. The car companies have to lower their prices on new cars. I said that I haven’t noticed a difference. There’s not much below $20,000, I said. She said that everything that lasts has come down in price.

“Does that really matter if wages haven’t kept up with cost of living?” I asked.

She looked at me.

“I mean,” I said, “that when they take out the price of food and fuel it looks like prices haven’t gone up much.”

“But everyone has to eat,” she said, smiling.

“Exactly. How can a family do anything if the price of food and the heating and how they get to work keep going up?”

“They can’t,” she said, “but if they refused to pay high prices--“

“How can they pay less for food?” I interrupted. “Grow their own food? Most people can’t even have a garden. Food prices have nothing to do with women going to work.”

“It’s like this,” she said. “When one person works they only make this much money” – She raised her hand up a little. – “and can only spend so much. When two people work they make this much.” – She raised her other hand higher than the first. – “What do they do with all the extra? They spend it and that make prices go up. Better to have only one person work.”

My jaw hung slack. “I’m not an economist,” I said, “but I don’t think that’s right.”

“I haven’t studied economics,” she said, “but I grew up in the 60s and 70s and I remember my mom saying that everything was getting more expensive and this was when lots of women started to go to work. If just a few had gone to work everything would have stayed the same, but when most of them started working prices went insane.”

And if I start to pay you to protect me from tigers and I never get attacked by a tiger living in California then you must be protecting me from tiger, I thought.

“If all the women just quit their jobs” – She smiled and chuckled for the first time during this conversation, as if it were all a joke. – “prices would get better.”

For a second I thought about mentioning the insane inflation of food prices in China, but knew that she would just point out that more women are working there, too. It’s hard for me to point to any recently successful economy in this world where prices on food are going up where women aren’t a large part of the workforce. I think they have to word as much as they want to work. She’d just argue that all the prices there were cheaper before so many women started working.

“They wouldn’t go down,” I said, instead of speaking my thoughts.

“I think they would,” she said. “You know, people can survive with only one person working. They just have to make sacrifices.”

I let the conversation stop there. I had nothing more to say to her. She’s not going to leave her job even though she just married one of the officers here. We talked about that a while ago, long before she told me inflation is because women work. She’s going to work for a least another 10 years, she told me. She’s going work, even though he brings home a nice salary and will get a good pension when he retires, because she wants buy some nice things and fix her place up and live comfortably.

How to Make Friendship

Found this picture over on *shudder* Facebook. It explains so much about my life.

More Out

Sent out nine applications last week. One of them still works for the state, but the job's in Houston. Which is cool. (Not as in the weather.) It would be cooler, though, if it would  be for a promotion. Still, if I get an interview, I'll be happy.

Life's Distractions

When the mail goes out tomorrow I will have sent out eight applications this week. Most have been to Cowcity, another was sent to Hell-A.

Every day I want to quit my job. My mother keeps telling me I should and go back to school. Get my MA and teach at a JC. I feel like I can't though.

And I don't understand... It's that word "can't." Of course I can. It'd be easy. I just write a letter to my boss saying my last day will be payday then fill out the paperwork and leave.

...And then go back to school?

I want to go to school. I'd like to get my Master's, but I don't want to not be working while I'm in school. The degree needs to be for me first, not the possibility of a job. Besides, if I quit I lose over four hundred hours of sick leave. (If they fire me, pardon, lay me off it'll keep for five or seven years, depending on the person I speak with, and will be waiting for me when I start back up with the state.) Mostly, though, I want to make sure I have a job before I go and spend thousands of dollars as an excuse to write about fanfiction.

As usual, thinking about all of this deepens the valley my brain sits in. And so I go for distractions.

A while ago I wrote (at least I'm pretty sure I wrote, but I couldn't find the post) that I think most people find something important to them to keep them too distracted to become too... thoughtful, as if full of thought. People distract themselves with other people, be it a lover, friends, children. People distract themselves with work. People distract themselves with hobbies. People distract themselves with TV or video games. People distract themselves with drugs, sometimes hardcore and sometime perfectly legal. People distract themselves with sex. Distraction helps keep us and the economy going.

I've been trying to find something to distract myself with to get rid of the thoughts. When I was still living in North Bay I was coming close to being distracted by writing. I got to the point where I was writing a little every day. Just notes, mostly. All of it silly fanfictions. Nothing great, but I was writing. I was on my way to being an amateur writer. (Sure, someday I was hoping to go pro, but that would be sometime after I competed in the Olympics.) Then I got a new job and moved.

I thought I'd be cool with new job. Just move in, move on, and keep going. And then it turned out my job was built around misery and dreams about finding babies to care for. And I couldn't write fiction of any sort. Sure, I could still blog, although not much, as seen by the paltry number of posts in 2011 and thus far in 2012. The hole got deeper and the deeper it goes the harder it was for me to write. But I got out of that craptastic job last fall, everything didn't get better. Oh, the stress and the baby dreams disappeared, which was great, but they were replaced with an all encompassing feeling that my position will never change. My work life will never get better. I'll always be on, or near, the bottom, ignored because I am the way I am and physically feel ill when I try to be different. These past seven months and dozens of applications and at least five interviews only reinforce the horrible things I believe about my professional life. And I'm tired of thinking about it. Hence, distractions.

The thing is, though, that I don't care for people, don't plan on having a lover, don't often feel like I have any friends, and don't want kids. I hate my work and that won't change unless I can move up a little. Video games work for a day, maybe, but not longer than that and only two or three times a month. I argue with the TV and dissect what I watch to myself all the time. Drugs cost money that I don't want to spend. And I'm not having sex with anyone anytime soon.

That leave a hobby. But I have no hobby. Writing was a hobby, but from deep in the hole I can't write what I'd like to write; I can only write narcissistic, nihilistic nothings like this. What can be my hobby?

Well, last week, I bought a ukelele (you may pronounce it either way, I'm cool with that). So far it is only mildly distracting because I can't play songs on it. I can read the music and I've sort of learned how to read tabs, but I can't move from one chord to another within the space of a beat, yet. Practice is what it'll take. Patients is what I hope I have. I really need... I really hope that it'll be distracting enough.

5-Year-Olds

There are three 5-year-old kids in my brain. And I talk to them. Not out loud. In my head. Which is where most thoughts should be kept.

Two of the kids I explain stuff to. I break things down into the simplest terms I can. They ask questions and I try to answer the questions the best that I can in ways that they understand. They tell me when they don't understand what I'm explaining. I don't know who these kids are and I don't know what their sexes are. I just know that they are human and not much older than 5.

The third one, I know. She's my niece. I talk to her about me and her and living life. I talk about why I am the way I am and why she shouldn't just assume that one way of living, mine or someone else's, is the right way to live. She listens to me and she's pretty sure that I'm an idiot, but for some crazy reason she still listens. I do my best not to make her sad. I happens, though.

Even though we all knew...

I did not get that job I interviewed for a week-and-a-half ago. Shocker!

However, one of the people doing the interview came to me personally and said that I was in their top three (or five, depending on when I listened to her). She also said that she and the other woman interviewing me saw that I was ready to be put into an analyst position and that I was being wasted (my word, not her's) at my current level. She also hinted that there may soon be more analyst level position being introduced where I'm at.

I thanked her and didn't roll my eyes.

I have depressing and sad questions I want to ask, but I think I'll keep them to myself this evening.

Like a Hippo in the Desert

The usual complaint: I don't like my job.

The surprise: I don't HATE it like I did my last job.

The unfortunate truth: I can't seem to settle into a comfortable loathing.

I didn't like my job when I lived in the North Bay. Just scroll through, oh, just about every post I wrote from September 2005 through September 2010 and you'll see how much I didn't like the job. With the exception of the time they forced us into using a horrible, horrible computer program (seriously it was "paperless," but my office used twice as much paper after we started to use it and even though the page for a person had their address it neglected to show their zip-code, to find the zip-code you had to click five different links), I didn't hate where I was. Eventually I settled into a comfortable loathing of the situation and my biggest frustration was that there was no where for me to promote to.

So, I moved to the physical location I'm at now. I thought that if I came here there'd be opportunity. I'd work hard and do a good job and when a position for a promotion came up I'd get a good shot at it because I'd have an in. Except that since I got here there have only been two openings for the next step up. One I didn't interview for because I could be closer to the asshole boss I had at the time and the other one I really wasn't qualified for. And so for the next six months I tossed out applications to other places with no response.

Eventually I had two interviews. Both at my current location. Both in the same class that I'm in now. I was offered both jobs and jumped at one of them because I had to get away from the job that was giving me stress dreams. And it is so much less stressful. (I haven't had any dreams about having babies forced on me for months.)

The biggest problem with this current job is that there isn't enough work for me. I know that sound's crazy, but it's the way it is. There are three other people in my classification in this group and we all do the same work. One of us has her own special location, so her work isn't horned in on. The other two and I all deal with the same pile of work and it isn't enough for three people. I think it's just the right amount for two people though. When one of us is on vacation there's plenty of work to do, but not so much that anyone becomes overwhelmed and we're only occasionally bored.

And I've been continually sending out applications for a promotion. Since I got this job I think I've been on six interviews that would be a promotion. Obviously I haven't gotten any offers. I have another one on Friday, but I'm not going to get the job. (I'm not just being negative. There's been a woman filling in for the past three months. She's going to get the job because she's been doing the job.) Part of me doesn't want to go to the interview, but I need to for the exposure, if for no other reason.

I'm hoping that I'll be good enough in the interview that maybe the next time an out-of-class appointment comes up I'll be thought of because I don't know how else to do it. There's some sort of game to the situation, I know that much. The problem is that I don't know what the board looks like, let alone know any of the rules. How can I play the game? Do I even want to play the game? If it has to do with schmoozing can I play it? Maybe there's some way around the game. Maybe if I am good enough at my job someone will take notice and give me a shot.

That's why tomorrow I'm mailing out an application for my current level at a place that's even bigger than where I am. I hope, but don't really believe, that if I get in I can dazzle through my work ethic and when I get an interview I'll finally have been able to help myself. Is it possible to get people to notice you by doing what you're supposed to do really, really well?

I hope so.

I wished I believed so.