Getting back into the groove…

It’s weird how one can have a set schedule week to week, yet feel so disjointed and aloof. It feels like I’ve been in near-scramble mode for the last couple of months – trying to stay engaged with what’s going on in the world, but also trying to live the life in front of me. It feels like the bullshit never ends. If it’s not more bombs being dropped on Palestine, it’s debt collectors applying a tighter grip to get at what little money I have. If it’s neither of those, then it’s the fact that I’m working a job I like, but don’t necessarily love, for meager pay and an extensive commute. All while our government aids a genocide, rolls back protections for under-represented people, and seeks to dismantle one of our more effective means of communication and organization (TikTok).

So yeah, my brain feels scattered.

But I thought I could take a minute to walk through what I’ve been working on (very slowly), and maybe kick up a little excitement for myself to get back into it. First off, if you don’t follow me on TikTok, I’ve been writing haikus every day for the month of April (National Poetry Month), but I have some catching up to do. There may not be much time to really invest in a TikTok community, but feel free to follow me there for what we have left. Second, May and June look like they’ll have a lighter workload at my day job, so I’m hoping to finally launch my podcast, “Existentially Speaking.” I’m also working on a new blog site to go with it, but haven’t yet ironed out the design. Third, I’m setting up a paid subscription site that’ll house my more creative projects – stuff beyond podcasts and mere blogs.

While I’m at it, I’m also aiming to be more active within the reader communities – on TikTok, YouTube, and maybe Instagram as well. I’ve often struggled with vlogs – something about how I look and sound on camera vs. how I look in the mirror and sound in my own head – so these projects might take some time. But given the way the government can just clamp down on these platforms, I might push through to use them while we have them.

This week I’m working on a longer blog post that reflects over the role of sound in the reading experience – comparing audio books vs. physical books. It’s a post I’ve been working on for a few weeks, but again, because I’ve felt so frazzled lately, it’s hard to tie it all together and feel confident that it’s actually making sense (sort of the same vibe with this post, too). But I think it’s almost ready to post.

In terms of what I’m reading lately, I’ve been loving Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. I’ve loved it so much that I’ve dusted off my MFA creative thesis and started to re-write it. After a few years, it feels like it’s meant to be a horror novel rather than whatever I have it as now. I’m also working through The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi, and I hope to pair it with The Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said soon.

Anyhow, that’s all for now. If you’d like to “get in on the ground floor” as they say in the business, feel free to hop over to my Ko-Fi page and buy me a coffee (i.e. help get this paid subscription thing started). My pipe-dream is to fully switch over to content creation as my “career,” but I’m going to need some help generating momentum. Every little bit will help!

The Right Fit? Or a Good Fit?

Job hunting fucking sucks.

Not only do I have to suddenly pretend that I care about corporate interests, but I have to adopt a certain voice that carries the intimation that I am sincere about caring about those corporate interests. Like when Starbucks customers sometimes asked me what it’s like working there, I’d be expected to talk about the great benefits, better pay, and positive work environment. In those moments, I had to forget how often it was I consoled a barista who was crying in the back, or how we were expected to churn out the same sales numbers when a couple people called out (arguably because they didn’t want to cry in the back at work… again).

Truthfully, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed a job, I have never cared more about the company’s sales or public image than about mine and my coworkers’ wellbeing. I just haven’t. And I never will.

But not having a steady means of income is messing with my mind. Not only do I have to deal with judgement from others for leaving a job I grew to hate with no backup plan, but I have to juggle expenses. Tonight I had a PB&J for the third night in a row because I have three bills going out this week that will take pretty much everything I have left. And the shitty thing I’m trying not to focus on is that even if I had stayed at Starbucks, I’d likely still be in this situation because they cut my hours. So not only would I still be eating PB&Js, but I’d be way more exhausted than I am now.

So why the hell did I tell a friend who offered me a job that it wouldn’t work out? It had full time hours and even offered OT pay. “You can work whatever you want,” he told me. All I had to do was take a quick drug test (job involves operating a lot of heavy machinery), and show up on time. And it’s a job I’ve worked before, so there would be virtually no training involved. All things considered, for what I need right now, it would be a good fit.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the right fit.

I left Starbucks not just because I was tired of the entitled customers or wearing myself out for some millionaire CEO. I left because it was no longer a viable option for what I want to be doing in life. Do I wish I had something else lined up? Sure, but I actually had something lined up after I left my last job, as I did the job before that and the job before that.

All my adult life, albeit somewhat waylayed by a few college degrees, I have left one job to the next thinking I’d finally be able to do the things I want to do – I’d be able to write the stories I wanted to, or spend my weekends reading. And each time I wound up disappointed (again), that regardless of how hard I worked, we still weren’t making enough. Or I had underestimated the level of exhaustion I’d feel after coming home.

Each job offered new promises and instead delivered the same struggles. And when, in late 2017, a former manager told me that what I was experiencing was the result of “being stuck taking low-paying jobs,” I started to believe her, despite the insulting undertone. I really was stuck.

Truthfully I’m still stuck. I don’t know the formula for landing that salaried desk job that covers all my main expenses and allows me some time off to go watch some hockey games once in a while or pursue my dreams of being a published author on the side. I thought it was having a college degree, then I was told I needed more experience… or another degree. Then I got that degree and was told I needed more experience… or another degree. So it turns out I wasn’t just stuck taking low-paying jobs, I was stuck believing that what worked for others would work for me.

One positive side to unemployment is being able to catch up on the stacks of magazines I’ve collected over the last couple of years. Today I was reading through last July/August’s issue of WIRED and there’s an article on Taika Waititi, the eccentric writer/director/actor who’s churned out some incredible stories over the past few years. As the article’s author, Jennifer Kahn, highlights, Taika didn’t attend any film school, and that most of his projects are conducted intuitively. He aims for something new, something different, so when he’s working for an EP who wants something formulaic and safe, “he will agree to everything [they say] and then simply do what he wants. As he put it, ‘It’s literally me trying to not do whatever the grown-ups say,’” (50).

I’m not saying I’m aiming to be successful like Taika – that would take some serious luck and I feel like I’ve used up a lot already. But I am saying that maybe it’s time I stop listening to what the proverbial grown-ups tell me to do and simply pursue what I want to do. Start choosing the right fit over a good fit.

I guess I’m writing all of this to say you’ll probably see me doing a lot of self-promos over the next few weeks and months. Either that or I’ll cave and take another good fit and you won’t see me for a few months.

C’est la vie or whatever.

What’s next?

A friend asked me today if I felt nervous about not having a new job lined up. I said that I was, but that it wasn’t enough to keep me in my current job. As I mentioned last time, my current job has become unsustainable even from a pragmatic standpoint; I’m putting more effort into it than what I’m being compensated for. Fluctuating hours, intentional understaffing from Starbucks, endless orders through the mobile app and drive-thru – it is simply not a healthy place for me right now, and arguably not for anyone. And after talking with several store managers, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to return to the way it was before.

But the thought of having another job lined up is not comforting. Right now, with where I am mentally and emotionally, another job would only perpetuate the same angst I currently have. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” as they say. Trading one capitalist mess for another doesn’t seem like a viable solution. I’m not leaving because the job I have doesn’t pay well enough; it helped us stabilize our rent situation and keep up with our bills. I’m leaving primarily because it’s causing me more harm than I’m willing to tolerate. And I have growing fear that finding another job of a similar caliber would only yield a similar situation.

Since dropping off my notice on Tuesday, I have actually felt a lot lighter mentally and emotionally. Even though last work week was particularly hellish – several call-outs, a huge technology problem that made the job way more stressful, a high volume of customers, etc. – I woke up Wednesday morning with a ton of energy. And unlike any week prior, I was feeling significantly less pain. It was like a pinched nerve suddenly being relaxed; I felt a little care-free. All I wanted to do in this feeling was create, so I sat down and outlined several categories of projects I want to try my hand at.

I’ve been applying to jobs that I think would be a better fit for what I want to do from home, though I don’t know if any of them will work out. But I also think I owe it to myself to push my own creative limits and see what I can produce. I have some time – not much, but some. Maybe get the ball rolling with a Substack, then a podcast, and then maybe start storyboarding my next comic series, and who knows? Maybe between the different platforms, I could carve out something that pays the bills?

I guess I’m just tired of trying the same damn schtick and expecting a different result.

Anyhow, I’m gonna go read.