So I may get a job after all...

So I took the test yesterday down in Pittsburgh. First of all, let me say that I LOVE downtown Pittsburgh. I've never really been there, save for one two-block walk from a parking garage to the Mellon Arena for a hockey game in college. Rob dropped me off at the Pennsylvania State Office Building on Liberty Avenue at about 12:40 p.m. yesterday and I felt at home. This is where I need to be. LOVED IT.

Anyway, I made my way up to the 15th floor of a building so old, I'm sure I saw pillbox hats, a-line skirts and heard the click-clack of a mechanical typewriter behind a door with an opaque glass window. I walked into the office marked "Civil Service Examinations" and got sent through another door into the quietest room ever. The test proctor (that term always makes me giggle, the 14-year-old kid in me rearing its head) sent me over to a computer after giving me instructions on how to take the typing test. I managed to finish that with a score of 78 words per minute with only 6 errors.

The next section was a 135-question multiple choice test that scored me on comprehension, basic arithmetic, alphabetic and numeric filing, checking for spelling and grammatical errors or inconsistencies, and office etiquette. They give you 2.5 hours to finish it. I finished it in 45 minutes. I raised my hand (because that's the quiet way - and the only way - to get the proctor to come see you) and she came over and said, "I can't believe you're already done!"

That made me nervous. It's one of those situations where you finish a test so quickly you figure there are only two possible outcomes: a) You blew it. No chance in hell you did well. b) You kicked some serious ass. But I tried to shrug off the worries and went outside to call Rob to come pick me up. Want some free advice about Pittsburgh? Take the T. Much more convenient and much cheaper.

We had left the kids at my mother-in-law's for the afternoon so, despite the rain, we went down to South Side and poked around a couple of used book stores. We grabbed some onion rings and a big Diet Coke at Burger King and went back up to get the kids.

This morning, I checked my score. With civil service tests, your score ranks you among all the other people who've tested for that position. The results show you how many people are ahead of you on the list, how many are equal, and how many did worse. I got a 91. I had no idea what that meant until I clicked on each of the positions I tested for and there were four, apparently: Clerk Typist I, Clerk Typist II, Clerk Typist I (local government) and Clerk Typist II (local government). I applied for employment in five counties: Erie, Crawford, Butler, Allegheny and Washington. Here's how I did:

Allegheny County: Fifteen people did better than me, nine were equal to me, and 334 did worse than me. YAY!

Butler, Crawford, and Erie Counties: Roughly five people did better than me, a couple were equal and about 150 did worse.

Washington County: NOBODY did better than me, one was equal, and about 100 were worse. YAY!

So now I sit and wait. Stay tuned for next week's update, when I test on the 27th for Income Maintenance Caseworker. I'll have the details on the 28th of how I did.

"My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot." ~Ashleigh Brilliant

We've had a lot going on lately and yet nothing's really transpired. Well...that's not entirely true. I did go on another interview last week. This time, in a curious turn of events, it was for a local job. What's more, it's my aunt's job at the high school I attended. She's been there for 35 years and is retiring in June. She says 90 people applied for her job. Out of them, 10 were interviewed. So we'll see.

The kids are adjusting to life here kinda-sorta well. Bubba's doing great. His speech is exploding and he understands so much. You can't slip anything past this kid! Beth is riding the rollercoaster of "I'm still in a new environment AND I'm four years old. Wheeeee!" She still talks about going "home" and how she just wants "to get out of here." We have to keep explaining to her that, for now, this is home. It breaks my heart. Quite frankly, I like calling this domicile "home" about as much as I like raw onions. For those of you who know me, you know nothing makes me gag as much as tasting a raw onion.

Living in my mom's house has been, to say the very least, trying. She's lived alone for the last six years and has become accustomed to her solitary life. Then we come straggling in with our two small children and their toys, wreaking havoc on her simple, quiet home. We're up at 7:00 a.m. every day, there are Cheerios, Kix, and occasional cookie crumbs strewn about her floor, and dinner is a three-ring circus. We're cooking with seasonings and flavors she's never cooked with and she informed me that she's eaten more vegetables since we arrived then she's eaten in the last year.

With all that comes her belief (or, at least, what I suspect is her belief) that since I'm "home," I need to be led around and parented like the child she must think I am. She's meddling in my job search, brow beating me into working at that damn Cracker Barrel and trying to make me feel bad for not wanting to work into the evening. They only want to hire a prep cook for the afternoon/evening shift. My availability clearly states that I want to be home by 6:00 p.m. I want to eat dinner and bathe my kids and be there for bedtime. That's extremely important to me. Mom doesn't get that. She seems to think that this is the Best Job on Earth and that I should kiss the toes of the manager who's planning on calling me to try and convince me to work in the evenings. Good luck with that.

I really hope something comes along soon so we can move the hell out of this house. I don't care where it is. I need my own space back and my kids need to be free to have fun and yell. THEY'RE KIDS! Let them be kids!

And then there's the nebby, gossipy canary about town who's telling people I'm some oppressed housewife with no opinions and no chutzpah. I've got an idea of who it is and frankly, I'm not surprised. Conneautville is the very definition of Small Town, U.S.A., and what better to talk about than the person who moved out of this town a beer-loving, wildly independent party girl and came back a calm, settled wife and mom who appreciates the art of compromise and doesn't feel the constant need to be a hard-nosed, stand-offish bitch who keeps everyone at bay to avoid getting hurt. I went through a very rough five-year period before I met my husband. I lost my dad, my grandparents, an aunt and an uncle. I had two different boyfriends cheat on me with good friends of mine. I had friendships fall apart. By the time I met Rob, I had lost a lot of respect for myself and was sick and tired of getting hurt.

But when he came into my life and stayed, didn't hurt my feelings or make threats of leaving, and showed me that it was okay to let people in and that he wasn't there to use me, and most importantly that nothing was going to shake his love for me, I softened. I calmed down. I trusted him. And what people didn't bear witness to over the last six years was the metamorphasis I went through. I started seeing life differently, especially after having children. My values changed, my opinions changed, and I wanted different things out of life. I guess some people write that off as a character flaw and are bent on sharing the news with everyone.

Maybe all that city livin' in California did me some good. It taught me to mind my own business. It also taught me to stand up for me and mine. My politics may have changed, and I may not be as wild and crazy as I used to be, but I'm a whole lot stronger now than I ever was. So if the gossip hound reads this, pass this along, too: I don't need anyone's approval to be happy. I absolutely love my life and that's all you need to know.

Now I'm a bi-monthly poster...

I'll be surprised if anybody reads this. Seriously, I will. I do still love writing, and I miss blogging, but the days just run away from me like hungry cheetahs after a wildebeest. I wake up, feed the kids, feed myself, feed my husband, and then he does schoolwork in the morning, we usually have somewhere to go in the afternoon, and then there's dinner, baths, and bedtime. I usually squeeze in 15-20 minutes between baths and "Jeopardy," but that's not enough time to check and reply to my emails, breeze through Facebook and MySpace (both of which, in my world, are only slightly more active than this blog), and see if there are any jobs to be applied for on Craigslist.

In other news, and in case the previous sentence didn't give it away, I'm still unemployed. I went on two interviews for the same job last week. First was with a staffing agency who was doing the legwork for a small company in Bridgeville. My interview was at 10:00 a.m., where I basically just filled out an application and W-4's, told the lady who was handling my case that I could start immediately, and had her tell me that if I didn't hear from them by Friday to call them and see what was going on. Four hours later, she calls me and asks if I can do an interview with the company the next morning. Clearly, I impressed somebody. So we hauled our cookies back down to Bridgeville Wednesday morning, left the kids at my mother-in-law's, and went to the interview. I thought it went well, the girl interviewing me seemed friendly and the company is a perfect fit for me. I have no idea how soon she'd be calling, though, if she wanted to hire me so I'm sitting on pins and needles here. I assumed by Friday but maybe that's too soon?

As a result of the joblessness, we're still at my mom's. I think it goes without saying that this situation SUCKS. She's 70, she's used to being alone, and she's definitely not used to having small children underfoot. Small children who, part in parcel, come with small toys and small bits of food. Oh, and loud voices. She spends her time at home yelling at them to stop running, stop jumping, stop yelling, stop touching anything that isn't a toy (and some things that are toys), and either belittling our parenting or completely disregarding it, as though we're the babies in this situation. We have got to get out of here.

So that's about it with us. How've you been?

Am I seriously down to once a week?

Oy. My apologies to whomever still reads my blog. I've been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger lately. We've either been driving back and forth to Pittsburgh or I've been plastered to the computer trying to find a job. Initially, I wanted to find a job in Pittsburgh. Now, I just want to find a job anywhere...Pittsburgh, Erie, Cranberry, Meadville. All up and down the western side of Pennsylvania, I'm open to suggestions. I've got about a dozen resumès/applications out, most of which were sent yesterday. I've even sent unsolicited resumès to the Meadville Tribune and the Post-Gazette. I need work.

In other news, my children have run amok. Nay, not "children," I mean to say "child." Beth has gone completely wild. It's almost as if she's never known any rules in her short four years on this earth. I'm trying to attribute it to the move, with her being out of sorts and confused and whatnot, but I think it's more to do with her being four. Do all four-year-olds suddenly develop a need to push you at every turn? To challenge every rule? To drive you to the brink of insanity and laryngitis? Oh. My. God.

Ah, sweet DSL.

Windstream finally showed up (a day late) and installed our DSL. Seriously folks, do they really need someone to do that? They don't let you do it yourself, apparently, they have to do it. It's all very Big Brother. They don't use a software installation CD - like AT&T did in California - so that it's easy peasy. No, no. The lady hooks up the modem and then opens Internet Explorer, types in Windstream's URL and does it for you through their website. I don't much care for the process but I wanted my internets back too bad to object. Besides, the woman doing our installation was an alumni from my high school so we had a nice little chat about people we both knew. She's eight years my senior so the connections were few, but it was a nice chat.

So now...to find a job. We're very confused about what we want to do from here. Do we stay in this charming little podunk town and live a simple life (which is, ultimately, what we kind of want) and work jobs we really don't care for...or do we try to make a go out of Pittsburgh? And if we go with Pittsburgh, do we find a place to live first and then hope like hell I find work really quick? History shows that living on unemployment income alone while looking for work doesn't pan out too well. Or do we try to find me a job first and then scramble like mad and hope to hell we find someone willing to rent to us within a week or two?

Very confusing. Very. Thoughts?

I'd love to say something interesting happened today...

...but it didn't. We woke up, ran an errand for a friend, ate lunch, I went to a focus group in Pleasanton, went to Safeway and bought a few things, and came home. Ta-da! My day.

No calls today for jobs. I finally put my application in at Wal-Mart. I've been doing it in pieces: one little bit of it in Fremont, some of it in Union City, and I finally finished it at home. I didn't know you could do that at home, I thought you had to apply at those computer kiosks, but the woman I babysit for said she got her friend a job at Wal-Mart that way so I checked it and whaddya know? I'll probably go back to it tomorrow and apply for something administrative too, if I can.

So on that note, I'm going to go relax and watch something funny with my husband. I need to chill. And "chill" I will: it's 39ºF outside right now with a chance of snow in our hills, at about 1000 ft.! Can I get a big "BRR" from my peeps on the lower left coast?!

This is the Bay Area's idea of snow, folks. I can hear you east coast suckers growling and groaning...

It's a small thing, really...

So I had my interview at Sears today. Let me start with what I wore: black dress pants, black dress flats, a white shirt under a tannish-cream blouse. Sounds benign, right? Yeah, well I bet it wouldn't sound so benign if I told you I nearly tore my foot off wearing those damn shoes. See, I was on a pretty tight budget when I bought the pants and shoes - two items I didn't have but needed for interviews - and whilst in Payless, these shoes were the only ones not designed for a cocktail dress that didn't cost more than I could spend. However, the only ones available with the little "Sale: $11.00" sign on the box were 1/2 size too big.

I was really stuck between a rock and a hard place: do I buy the too-big shoes and run the risk of blisters or do I not buy shoes at all and look like an asshole with black dress pants and cheap brown flip flops from Old Navy? Blisters, it is.

They were so frickin' comfortable when I got them home and wore them around the apartment! I loved them for about 10 minutes. The next day, I walked three city blocks in them in Oakland (this was a week ago, by the way, for another interview) and then another three blocks back to the car. I tore off about 1/4" worth of skin that morning. I vowed to never wear them again.

But then I got the interview at Sears. So I emailed Diana, who works in retail, and asked her if I should go uber dressy or uber casual for department store interviews. She told me dressy was my best shot. I trusted her instincts, she's been in retail for years.

So back to those blasted shoes. Luckily, there was minimal walking today but if I'm going to wear those scalpels with straps ever again, I have got to buy some booties for them.

Cute, right? Yeah. Cute like that creepy dinosaur in "Jurassic Park" that killed Newman.



Anyway, I go to my interview. I sit there for half-a-damn-hour waiting for my interviewer. Then I find out, halfway through the interview, that they don't offer full-time AT ALL and then, in my second interview (yes, I had the pleasure of being interviewed twice), that I'd only be making $8.00 an hour - not that unexpected but still a bit of a letdown when, in your last job, you made $10.00 an hour - and that I wouldn't be eligible for benefits until I'd been employed for a solid year. I need health care for my kids, like, NOW. But I have to take whatever job I can get for the time being, just to pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads. I just hate being without health care. That's when shit will go wrong, you know? Someone will fall off the couch and break an arm or they'll get an ear infection and I won't be able to help it.

This sucks. I hope one of the million office jobs I've applied for recently calls me soon!

Two, Please.

Interviews, that is. Yay! I applied to Sears online today and at the end of the application, it scheduled me an interview automatically. That'll be Thursday. My other interview is tomorrow with Sports Authority, who called at 6:30 p.m. to talk to me. Who calls that late? Anyway, I'm excited. I know it's just a sporting goods store and plain ol' Sears but it's work. I'd prefer an office job of course, but hey, it's paying the bills, buying groceries, keeping the roof over our heads. I swear I'll never complain. Much.

I turned in applications to Office Depot and Lucky Supermarket. Between the two, I'd prefer Office Depot just so I could get high off office supply fumes (I'm an office supply store junkie, I can't get enough of pens, paper and collapsible folders), but Lucky would be much more convenient since I could walk to work every day.

Overall, I hope none of these interviews is just for seasonal employment. In the interest of paying the bills, I'll have to accept the job but I really need something long-term. So keep your fingers crossed! I forgot how much I hate looking for jobs.

Rob and I had a bit of a fight this morning over the whole issue. He found an ad on Craigslist for me last night that he thought I should apply for. It was from a head-hunting company - Dialogue Direct - who hires any Joe/Jill Schmoe off the street to work in teams to convince wealthy corporations and such to sponsor Children International. Now this isn't to say that CI isn't a wonderful organization, it absolutely is. What I couldn't stomach was the idea of public speaking. I HATE IT. Vehemently. It makes me panic. Sweat. Shake. Stammer. Feel faint. The whole nine yards of a panic attack.

But I applied. Because I'm a pushover like that.

This morning, I got a system-generated email asking me to come in for an interview tomorrow afternoon in San Francisco to see "..."if Dialogue Direct is the right fit for me..." Let me save them and me the time and, in my case, $14.00 to ride BART into the city: Dialogue Direct is definitely not the right fit for me. Job duties aside, my hours would be from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. That means I'd have to get on BART before 8:30 a.m. to get to San Francisco on time and I wouldn't be home until 8:30 p.m. or thereabouts. I would never get to see my husband and kids, plus I'd have to hire a babysitter in the evenings between 6:30 p.m. and whenever I got home, when both kids were sound asleep. Totally not worth it.

But when I explained most of the above sentiment (the not-seeing-the-kids-and-husband part didn't occur to me until two minutes after the argument), he got all belligerent and upset, saying "I guess we'll just start turning down interviews and job offers, [blah blah blah]!" I stopped listening. I did, however, start bawling and locked myself in the bathroom.

How could he not understand the pressure I'm under? We have, like, no money, bills are due, Christmas is coming, rent is just around the corner, and it's all on me to start making money A.S.A.P. I'm experiencing a large quagmire of stress right now, the last thing I need is a heckler. Not to mention a heckler who, in a moment of lapsed judgment, completely disregarded his wife's feelings. Rawr.

But we're over it now. He apologized in his patented, not-actually-saying-I'm-Sorry kind of way and I stopped crying. Temporarily. Ha ha. I've been crying a good bit lately, mostly due to stress, partially due to seeing the excitement on my daughter's face at the prospect of Christmas and knowing that although Grandma Betty, Grandma Lynette, and Papa and Yaya will be buying her presents, Santa Claus may be MIA this year. She probably won't know any better, she is still very young. But we know and it sucks. But whatever. It's about new beginnings this coming year and I swear, if it means I have to knock off a liquor store, they'll have a kick-ass Christmas next year!

So I'm Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Alright, alright. Enough people have noticed that I've not been blogging daily like I used to. You might say I've been busy, preoccupied, harried, aggrieved, distressed, or fretful. I've been troubled. Excited. Nervous. Excited but nervous.

Here's what you know: Rob was laid off the Friday before Thanksgiving.

Here's what you don't know: His last day of work was November 7th. He got his "severence check" on 11/26 for two-week's pay. I air-quoted "severence check" because although it may be company policy, two week's pay as severence for five years worth of loyalty and hard work seems a mere pittance. But what do I know?

Anyway, the check just covered the rent. I got paid for one week of babysitting. Things. Are. TIGHT.

It's been decided throughout the last month, however, that Rob is going back to school. We talked and talked, and since it costs next to nothing to go to school when you're a resident of California, he would enroll full-time at Chabot for night classes with an unofficially declared major of mechanical engineering. After he earns 60 credits at Chabot, he'll apply for transfer to UC Berkeley! He should be done with everything in about 5-6 years.

Initially, he was also going to work full time while going to school. Then we had a brilliant idea: send me back to work. I wasn't too keen on it at first. I have no clothes (why do women always go to that first? "I have nothing to wear!") that aren't stained, fading, or growing holes in them. I haven't worked since early 2004 - who's going to hire me? Will I really want to spend 9+ hours a day away from the kids I've spent every day with for the last four years? Am I even cut out for the professional life anymore?

But I put my nose to the grindstone, pulled together my resumè and a generic cover letter, and pulled the proverbial trigger. I've got about 30-or-so resumès out. It's only been about a week and a half and although I've had no call-backs yet, we're hopeful!

So that's what I've been up to. I didn't want to say anything officially but I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the idea. If you know anyone in the SF East Bay area who needs an administrative assistant, please let me know! Or you can contribute to the Keep Mommy on the Edge's Family Afloat Fund!

Please bear with me. I plan on getting back to blogging on the regular but it's hard; I spend my evenings looking for jobs and sending out resumès and it kind of cuts into my blogging time. I do miss writing and I miss all you lovely people.

To Whom It May Concern

TO: Company My Husband Works For

FROM: His Wife

DATE: October 7, 2008

RE: The Status Quo

We need to talk about the service department at one of your Bay Area branches and more specifically, the management. You see, there are four mechanics in your shop. My husband is one of them. He's been with your company for over five years now. He's never done wrong by the company, only missed work in cases of family emergencies, personal illness, and in the last year in the name of "...there's just no work."

Now I realize that to you, this means nothing. "Oh," you say, "a day off here and there. Must be nice!" Yeah. Here and there would be one thing. In the last six months, it's been at least one day per week, sometimes more. A month ago, he had 42 hours on what should have been an 88-hour paycheck. I know that doesn't sound like a problem to you, but it was most definitely a problem for us. You see, I'm a stay-at-home mom. Yes, it's a choice, a choice we made four years ago when I was pregnant with our oldest child, Beth, who's three and a half. We've since added a boy to our family, Robby, who'll be one at the end of this month. We knew that having me stay at home would make things a bit tight. What we didn't know is that the economy would tank due to the mortgage crisis and that we'd be having to survive in the Bay Area for two weeks on one week's pay.

Have you ever tried to buy two weeks worth of of groceries for a family of four (plus one extra kid for dinner four days a week) on $60.00? Are you aware of the managerial practices being used in your Bay Area shop?

Your shop foreman is playing favorites. He has his pet, G, whom he's presumably grooming to take over his job when he retires - which is hopefully sooner than later - who's been working 40+ hours per week, no questions asked. Then there's Speed Racer who tears through jobs like his ass is on fire. Sure, he gets them done in the quoted time but did you know that more than half of the time, those jobs come back or end up being a mess a road mechanic has to clean up because Speed Racer worked too fast, overlooked major things, and now it needs repaired again. This guy works every day. Finally, there's D. He's been there for 30+ years; he's more or less a fixture. He's also damn close to retirement. He works at the speed of turtles humping, puts time down on jobs that he pissed away cleaning the threads on a bolt. He works every day. Nobody ever tells these guys to call before they come into work.

But my husband has to. Why? No one knows. When he is there, the foreman treats him like the village idiot and is extremely rude to him, nay, he's an asshole. So my husband talks to your service manager. What does the service manager tell him? "File for partial unemployment. We'll get the papers ready for you." My husband asks to be put on the road, which would provide more working hours. "No. I can't." No explanation, not even an, "I'm sorry, dude, I know it's tough."

Why is it that the other guys, one of whom is intentionally slow-moving and one who moves too fast and causes costly errors, get full days and full weeks, and my husband is begging for work? Are we the only ones who see the flaw in this? We're pretty sure we are. My husband is a good, hard worker who actually cares about the quality of work he produces and takes pride in doing a good job. Yet he's the first one to get shitcanned for the day if work slows down.

And don't get me started on that Stuffed Shirt you call the General Manager.

I guess maybe I should have addressed this letter to the Service Manager. Or write another one to him...

Service Manager,
Please show some mercy and lay off my husband. He's a good man, a terrific father and in ideal working conditions, an excellent provider. Your shop is obviously overstaffed and under a bit of duress. If you can't give him the hours he deserves, lay him off so that he can get a severance package and start collecting unemployment while we decide our next move. For five years of hard work and loyalty, you at least owe him that. You clearly don't understand the mental anguish he goes through and how much strain this puts on our family and you also don't care. You've made that quite clear every time Rob tries to talk to you and you immediately start talking over him just to stop him from telling you any reasons he needs the hours. You know, like glasses to replace the ones that have been broken for three months. I bet you never noticed that he stopped wearing glasses. Or tires to replace the bald and warped ones we're driving around on? Or the bills that we're desperately trying to stay on top of?
If you want to play favorites, fine. If my husband isn't one of them, that's also fine. But have a heart and lay him off. It's a win-win, really. Please.


I won't actually send this letter to anyone. It wouldn't do any good and would probably just make more trouble for my husband. But it feels good to get it out.