Jobs.

(I always find the intros to these the hardest part.)

Okay so working is a thing that everyone ever has to do, right?

Because in this society, there's all kinds of moving parts. Lotta do that needs done-in. And we all gotta do that do, gotta contribute and benefit as a whole.

...aaand then, as always, there is me. With like, very spotty motivation and completely random people skills. I've had- I've... been through a lot of jobs.

I mean you all know there was roofing, and then there was pad, and then a whole lot of nothing for six months, and then along came dishwashing, and then clerking, and then landscaping and then the present. These are all lovely lovely stories with their own lovely lovely beginning, middle, and end.

Roofing from what I can remember was just a rad summer job I got through my neighbour in the summer between my middle and last years of high school. The job kicked ass! But the people I was working with were fucking crazy. One guy was some crackhead from Ontario claiming to have fifteen years experience in roofing. 12323424234000 mistakes later we find that it was all bullshit, and he taught me everything I knew! Then there was my other supervisor who got pulled over by police for driving the work truck on the wrong side of a one-way road... aaaand then violating his parole. Anyone reading my blog who works in a manual labor position is probably not even a little surprised at my story so far. This shits common, especially in roofing.

my gig with the pad was attained through a similar deal. My neighbor had his own business he ran outta his garage, and I was ready to work for him. Pad wasn't so good though, in all honestly its kinda bullshit. (Yeah, I STILL have to do it and its horrible.) So basically what I have to do is I have to get in this truck, and drive all over the city picking up rolls of carpet foam underlay to haul away and give to the foam recycling plant to be processed. the foam company then pays me 12 cents per pound of pad (which, sounds like chump change, but when I'm offloading like over 3500 pounds every time we do a run, shit kinda adds up. Real fast.) It's a lot of heavy lifting, its gross, it sucks after it rains, its worse during the winter, the rolls are ALWAYS full of smoothedge (if you dont know what that is, its basically thin pieces of plywood covered in tiny sharp nails, and a total pain in the ass) staples, ecetera... Anyway yeah. This pad thing reminds me how important it is to have a real job.

For about half of grade twelve, I kinda kicked back and didnt do much. Just sorta bummed around. But there comes a time when you're tired of being broke, and you go perfect that old Resume.doc, and you go out and flyerbomb the strip malls. This proved to me as the least effective means of jobget. After time and time again of coming up empty handed, I looked on Kijiji (protip: No one. And I mean NO ONE. Is Too good for Kijiji) for something. It was easy, all I had to do was email the ad poster, and wait for them to get back to me! The calls came pouring in faster than I thought possible! This eventually landed me a position as a part-time dishwasher at Moxie's, its some weird restaurant that can't make up its mind about whatever kind of theme it is, its fancy, theres lots of deep fried pub food, lots of fancy ass desert, whatever you name it. I came in on weekends during the day, worked about eight hours a week, it was all pretty okay for the few bucks I made off of it. Looking back, I'm finding it hard to see what I was complaining about. Oh yeah. WHO SCHEDULES A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD KID TO WORK DURING THE DAY ON THE FUCKING WEEKEND. This job was hard, paid like shit, but the people I worked with fucking rocked. Kitchens are fun, man and dont let anyone tell you different. Sure, you gotta buckle down and work hard, but if you can keep it light and smile through it, its Really a lot of fun. And if youre the dishwasher, everyone in the kitchen knows you have the least appealing job in there, so as long as you're not a prick, they just like you off the bat. Even more if you wash what they need before they even know they need it. I had a pretty stainless system in that little kitchen when I was there. I'd have it so all of the dishes needed for prep were done before I even got started on cleaning up after brunch (so. Much. Egg. Won't. Ever. Be. Clean. *shudder*) So I had all of the Tupperware, spatulas, whisks, ladles, whatever all spick n span and drying off at about twelve fifteen. (I had major anxiety over how long I took, because I had no way of timing myself. This went away when I saw how long a short four hour shift felt, and just how much porcelain and plastic I had gone through in those short four hours)this job woulda been GREAT. If I only could show up on time. the place was Really far away from my house, and as patient and lenient as they were with me, I eventually couldn't keep up well enough to keep the job. Life does go on, as they say.

I was fired in June, like June first, so I had about a week of school left, I figured "fine. Fuck it, let's just keep focused on that, go looking for a job when I have some time." You know how focused a grade twelve kid is a week before A. Their official legit lastest day of school, B. Their 18th birthday? Of course you do its not very focused. So anyway, I had a lot of fun on that last week of school, finished it all off with a house party I don't really remember much of, and yeah! that was pretty much it! Except for oh yeah shit I'm still broke what do I do.

BACK TO KIJIJI I WENT.

So I found this little convenience store within biking distance of my house, they were offerring full time, I could do full time (at the time)and hey, it was a job, I cant turn it down! Except for oh yeah, I turned down that other job by ignoring them... And this convenience store just fucking sucked, too. 10 dollars an hour (compared to the 12-14 all of my friends were making) working from 2-10 pretty much every day well no, not working. I worked from 2-2:30. By then I had done everything, so 3-10 was pretending to look busy.(and I had summer classes in July, so wasting time straightening licorice when I could have been studying) oh yeah, and they decided to not pay me. This job lasted about four weeks before I called and pretty much said "Fuck you. I quit."

The downtime for this lasted about two weeks, in which I was snapped up by a landscaping company in August, who payed me 13 dollars an hour in cash every friday(oh how I love breaking the law) working pretty much every day of the week from eight until whenever we were done, lunch was payed for, dinner was when we needed it, and my worker's compensation package consisted of a hole to be buried in if I died on the job. Also my boss was an annoying prick who was never clear on what he wanted done, but was really REALLY good at telling you how you fucked up (just like an english teacher.) So when I LOST THAT JOB... I was pretty done. Just... done with work, done with life. I can't do what crackhead kids need to do in order to pay for more crack? God whats my problem?

...Not like I'd want to dig fence post holes for the rest of my goddamn life anyway, some crackhead kid can do that so he can buy more crack.

So yeah i just rode off of what I made at that job for the last few weeks, now I'm broke, wide awake at one AM, and have a new job starting Monday at a Starbucks in Copperfield. (Copperfield is behind McKenzie Towne, which is beside McKenzie Lake, which is in the middle of Butt Fuck Egypt, beside Okotoks) it is all really close by, and from the research I've done, this fire-breathing corporate monster is gonna take really good care of me. holy fucking benefits!

Moral of the story: No one. Is too good. For Kijiji. See yall later.

So I Guess this Is Hello?

Well, I-

Err...

Well, I suppose it all started like this. I wanted to make a blog because I saw Hyperbole and a half do it, I saw the Oatmeal do it, I saw Dan o'Brien, David Wong, Gladstone, Soren Bowie and everyone else under the golden californian sun do it, and I thought "Hey... People think I'm funny! I like talking about myself! Let's give making a blog a real shot!"

And then this happened

As a vessel of my thoughts, this little corner of the internet I call my own became a vessel of my negativity, and good god was there a lot of it.

I started this blog at a very abrupt turning point in my life.

Let's cut to grade eleven. For whatever reason, things got dark for me about this time. I could blame it on whatever, but this is when I learned the hard way to be very careful about people I let close in to my life, (and I gotta admit, I'm still kinda learning.)

This is where I became very jealous, insecure, and kinda frightened by people. I was still posting then, so I won't dwell on this TOO much seeing as I commented on it as it was happening, but in retrospect it is always different.

One main thing that bugs me more now than it did before was all the name calling and labeling I was going through. By others, and myself. Like, I couldn't fucking figure out who I was and I didn't really get that I could just take a deep breath and be me, because what that meant to everyone else isnt SUPPOSED to mean anything to me.

In watching everyone else be themselves, and trying to be like them, I ultimately made myself more... Different. But not the good kind of different that everyone just is, that horrible kind of different that nobody wants. This forced isolation and sudden insecurity drove me into a sort of emotional numbness. I didn't have any emotion in whatever I was doing, and my personality was very lacking.

Things did get better in grade eleven though. Something kinda popped and I came out of myself after MUCH trial and error. Let's fast forward to that summer before grade twelve.

I started working outside, someone was crazy enough to trust me with power tools, and it was a majorly rewarding experience all around. Doing that kind of work made me feel way better and more confident in myself, and all I could focus on was my own self improvement. This may explain why this summer was my least social. But as ever it was not to last.

I underwent a significant nervous breakdown at the end of that summer. And here I thought I was getting better! I didnt know what I was gonna do with myself, and I was frightened at the end of my wits that it was gonna happen again at some point! (and, you know happen they did)

I gotta say however that my last year of school was a pretty entertaining one, albeit with its rough takeoff.

In all this pussy bullshit, I had forgotten where my friends were and how to deal with other people, but that did eventually change.

And you know what? I had an amazing time! Me and my friends played Pathfinder together, I got to start (and kinda end) a band with some younger kids, it was nothing short of exciting and fun! And yeah, I guess these are all posts for another time :P

And I guess that's pretty much all I have to say for now. You guys deserved an explanation, like always. I feel like in most decent writing there's a barrier between the reader and what they're reading. I dont want to be a decent writer though so, don't go expecting too much of that. I've done some learning, I know what I'm capable of.


So I guess in other terms, I'm back? With a liiittle more to talk about than just my pills and my brain. Stay tuned, my little luminescent saboteurs!