Another hapless extended binge knocked my life trajectory away from stadium concession toward convenience store and gas station cashiering. I quit my job last week — lol no-showing like a rat-bastard tween flake, like usual — after having gotten hired at a Jacksons gas station, which I applied at on a spur of the moment. Sort of; I used to work at a gas station, and for a couple months I've been pining for the (relatively) meager business flow and serene environment. Looking back, I must have been either desperate to have even applied to work the stadium job in the first place; two things I've always found profoundly unnerving have been crowds and loud noise — in fact, it's why I hate living downtown (and did even before screaming troglodyte tweakers overran the local street scene).
But, before I get to the point of this post, let me tell you ... DAMN! I've never had such a hard time getting actually started working a new job! Incidentally, this tale is about to illustrate most poignantly one of the many reasons why I avoid applying for jobs via web sites. Everything went pretty sweet at first: less than a week after I'd applied I had an interview with a manager who vaguely resembles Captain Onishima, and I was content with waiting three or four days for my criminal background check to clear before starting Gas College today (three days mandatory training at regional headquarters). You know, getting to work, right? Well, all of a sudden I'm logging onto a bullshit portal and having to electronically fill out and sign a bunch of forms — including gems such as signing away designated breaks and submitting random UAs — when an absurdly buggy redundancy delayed my completing this task, thereby delaying starting my new job a whole week (because Gas College is open only Monday through Wednesday, apparently). This redundancy was more of a reDUMBdancy, by the way: this damn site wanted me to submit the same criminal background information I already had, and it wouldn't even let me! No matter what I punched in, the error message MISDEMEANOR IS REQUIRED was returned! I hope this ordeal isn't some kind of omen, that the job either sucks basilisk eggs or won't even end up happening anyway.
So, to the point. This last job is the fourth job I've had in the past two years; the fifth, maybe sixth since I've moved in off the streets and decided to redouble my effort to get it together. Doesn't sound like I've gotten very far, does it? Well, it just recently occurred to me that folk like me (who have undergone some seriously bad shit, have consequently made even more and worse mistakes, and who took their sweet time trying to turn their lives around), apparently we have yet another set of hurdles to trip over. As if the crappy living conditions and peer groups that frustrate advancement and encourage backsliding and calamity weren't enough, we also end up with crappy jobs. These jobs aren't just crappy insofar as they fail to adequately provide for us, but most of these jobs are also bad for our mental health. Perhaps I ought to elaborate:
Most people from my background and in my shoes end up doing bottom-of-the-barrel service work or labor, usually because we're unable to further our education or are too old to be regarded as less than liabilities in better-esteemed professions. This means our co-workers and supervisors are all too often the same kinda peeps we're chasing out of our building for selling bath salts or who have a hard time deciding whether to drink or gamble their paychecks. Examples: I've had a boss who was a film-at-home evangelist who commanded angels to dry his clothing and brought a Springfield 1911 to work with him every day, another who heard voices and had a hard time perceiving people as human beings, and this last one promoted some idiot breeder with his dick and is going to be another lousy dad. I've been threatened and attacked by co-workers on occasions numerous enough to have forgotten most of them ... and, that's not even considering the whole customer-service thing, which even in well-mannered Portland is a spiritually ablative experience.
- The first wall is the legacy of the past, or the inevitable trauma or just ignorant upbringing and peer influences that invariably lie at the heart of most dysfunctional and self-destructive thinking and behavior patterns. This of course extends past childhood and into the lousy decisions damaged people make and the desperate situations they find themselves in (as much as we're all influenced by our upbringings and our circumstances, without a sense of personal accountability all that's left is a self-absorbed victim).
- The second and third walls are the living circumstances and peer groups that are available to people who aren't blessed with the relative safety, comfort, and mostly healthy interactions those more affluent enjoy. It's pretty stressful living on a loading dock or in a sick building infested by vermin of both the four- and two-legged varieties; nor is there much edification to be found among one's fellows, who are any combination and concentration of opportunist, boor, thug, addict, and psychologically distressed.
