Meat Jell-o

Yesterday I worked my ass off!  That is figurative as I have a big butt already and it would take a long time to really work it off.  So anyway, I worked f'in hard! I spent the first half of my day cleaning as a real bona-fide housekeeper at a condominium time-share resort.  The units are rented out fully furnished for a week at a time (this is also where I had been stripping temporarily which I now know is a much easier job and more fun too).  The unit inhabitants only have one week to mess them up then a crew comes in and wipes, washes and polishes all the nooks and crannies to ready it for another round of Canadians or people from Texas (I know this because the units have the visitors name and hometown info on the room cards and most of them are Canooks or Texans).    I went into it thinking it wouldn't be so bad since my stripping experience was rather like a piece of cake.  Cleaning = not fun = people are pigs.  

After one week in a clean slate condo people manage to spill all sorts of crap in the fridge and apparently feel no need to wipe anything up.  In every fridge I cleaned there was the inevitable goo under the produce drawer.  I refer to the goo as meat jell-o as I think it is most likely hamburger, steak or chicken juice/blood that drips off the racks and puddles under the drawer.  Not only is it gross to look at it--the junk is also stinky and sticky and takes way too much elbow grease and time to rub out.  Blah!  Wipe it up people!  WTF!  You were there one week!  What does your home fridge look like?!?!?!?!?!  Also, when staying at a hotel/resort, please tell your children NOT to take the tube of toothpaste and squirt lines off it across the bathroom mirror.  Someone has to clean that.  Someone else also has to clean the pine needles off the couch cushions.  Why were there even that many pine needles on the couch cushion?  Did you take it to Glacier National Park on a hike and use it to sit on the trail when you were tired?  I am still perplexed by that one.  

My saving grace of the day was pairing with an OCD maid who had a penchant for bathrooms (thank God!  I shall refer you back to my earlier postings about hairy toilets...) and wearing my red Dansko clogs (I love you Dansko.  You make my feet happy).  I did the front half which is the kitchen and living areas.  Wipe and dust EVERYTHING.  Clean EVERYTHING.  Polish EVERYTHING (even the pots and pans).  By EVERYTHING I mean each frickin surface you can see and can't see.  Much like cleaning an apartment or house for a new tenant--that kind of clean--except it is fully furnished and decorated with pictures on the wall that need dusted and the glass cleaned and silverware to boot.  Kicked my ass!  It was quite a work-out too.  So if you look at the bright side--which I do as I am usually an optimist--I got paid to work-out yesterday.  Woot!  Woot!  I will just keep telling myself that the cleaning gig is like that exercise boot-camp that chicks pay craploads of money to attend only I get paid to attend.  Next, I shall trick others into coming with me and start my own cleaning agency/boot camp and not only will I get paid by those I am cleaning for, I shall get paid by the rich bitches that are too stupid to realize that they are paying me for the opportunity to clean someone's house.  Oh yeah.. Now that is a plan.  I shall work on putting that into action....(I didn't realize I could become an entrepreneur until I typed that..I am so onto something here) 

I AM A ROBOT....

Lately I feel like a robot.  Honestly, I find myself speaking all mono-syllabic and moving hurky-jerky style.  I feel as if I lost the up in my giddy-up and I am locked in the ho-hum hum-drum of unemployment.  This totally sucks!  Five months and counting.  I have created a routine and I am rather sure I have mentioned my routine in earlier posts but I am too lazy to re-read it looking for it to link to it.  Robots don't do things like that.  They only do what is in their routines and what they are programmed to do.  I am programmed to get up, read the paper, look for jobs, apply for jobs, clean the house, do laundry, go to work with my husband, make pizzas, deliver the pizzas, come home, look at Facebook, fold the laundry I put in the dryer before the leaving the house, empty the dishwasher, watch a rerun of  "Cold Case" and fall asleep.  Then repeat.  


I wish someone would push reboot or reprogram me to do something different.  Last week I did do other things but even those other things were work like mowing the lawn, weeding the flower bed, raking, waxing the floor and unpacking those boxes of weird shit I can't figure out where it goes but I know I have to keep it.  Aaargh.  I want to enjoy summer but summer enjoyment apparently equals money which one earns by working outside the home which is what I don't do and in my job with my husband--it is unpaid so the business doesn't have to pay someone else, so what fun is that?  


I think I may have a nervous breakdown and start beeping like Silas does when he is nervous.  For example:  First day of school,  "Hi.  I am your new teacher.  What is your name?"  "Beep." *Me* "His name is Silas."  "Oh, welcome Silas.  Let us find your desk.  You are sitting next to Libby.  Do you know Libby?"  *Him* "Beep."  "Well, you must be a little nervous.  That is ok.  Second grade is going to be fun.  What is your favorite sport?"  *Him* "Beep."  I finally left him at his desk even though he didn't stop beeping.  He always stops eventually.


Robots get stuck in routines because that is what they are made to do.  Not me.  If I am stuck in a routine I want compensated for it.  Here are somethings I would like to be paid for:  working and working.  I am good at working.  Mother f***er.  Beep.  Does not compute.  Does not compute.  Beep. Beep. Beep.

In Which I Get a Job

Ok.  So it is not really a long term job however I did so well working temporarily as a stripper I have been asked to be a housekeeper.  Woopee!  This too shall be temporary and on Fridays but at least it is a little bit of income.  Plus, someone likes me and feels that I am employable unlike a bazillion and a half others (Wal-mart...).  The head of housekeeping said she missed me terribly on Friday and the new girl is not so good.  Yay me! So now I shall be cleaning and not stripping.  It is a step up and offers more pay. Now I can afford a new pair of sandals for summer and some new resume paper.  I am running out.....


In other news, a recent study shows that most professionals are unemployed after lay-offs for an average of eight months.  This means, on average, I should find a new job in about two months.  I will be ready then.  I will also be tanned and fit.  I love summer...What better time to be unemployed than when you can go outside without a parka or an umbrella.

Just Whistle While You Work

Looking for a job is like waiting for my floor to dry after using Orange-glo. I enjoy the after effects of Orange-glo--the shininess of the floor reflecting the sunlight from the windows and the pleasant fake orange smell that lingers for a day or so. It is the waiting for it to be done part that drives me crazy. Inevitably I find myself in some desperate need to re-enter the kitchen early to retrieve something that I forget. If I give in, it is all for not and I must redo the floor within a few days. Blah! If I just sit and wait and let it cure then I can enjoy my handwork.


When I get antsy to apply for a job that pops up and hastily prepare my letter of application and materials, I can include some stupid mistake that could have been prevented if I would have just let it follow the usual course and took my time. That typo or omission is like the footprint I leave in the not-yet-dry-still-tacky orange-glo: it is there for all to see. Not only do I have to redo the floor but the errors in applications drag this waiting process onwards.


I have thought about hiring a maid since housework sucks. I can afford one right after I can afford a resume service to market my resume which will land me a new job. Until then, a little bit of elbow grease, plenty of orange-glo and a lot of waiting is the way to go.

Striking Gold

Wowsers.  I struck it rich on Craigslist today.  After a very long dry spell of any amusing job postings, I found two this morning-- ripe and ready for the picking.  La-di-da!

First up is a continuation of our old friend, Edwina, and her property preservation request.  I have no doubt that this has been posted by the same bottom feeders willing to pay a whopping $7.50 for a site visit!  (Gas is $2.89 a gallon right now, barely covers gas.  Idiots.....)  Funniest part is how they ended their posting:  "If you are insured, and honest, we should talk," as opposed to "If you don't have your own worker's comp policy and are a liar..."  Der....  That "we should talk" part should be a red flag that this is not the most genuine posting.  Maybe they should have ended it with "Lets do lunch, dahhhhling," in order to have a higher response rate since only a newb job hunter would respond to this one and, hey, free lunch!

Second idiot posting of the day comes to us from Sarah and Kent who feel that they have discovered the key to success and happiness and therefore must advertise it on Craigslist instead of late night infomercials.  They begin their post with an extremely annoying headline:  "Do you desire a change?"  Answer:  "No, I just look for jobs because I enjoy it."  "No, I just peruse job postings as a way of making myself feel better since I already have a job and want to laugh at the lack of good jobs available."  Why would they include that rhetorical question as their lead-in!?!?!?!  Of course I want change!!!!! Why would I be reading wanted ads online if I wanted to stay all caught up in the usual rigmarole of being unemployed.   For gods sakes alive!  This just really annoyed me but not as much as when I visited the website.  The website was so bad and I became so frustrated by the ambiguous phrases hinting towards financial freedom that I couldn't even post a screen shot here.  It made me so disgusted that I vurped.  I then took some Tums and only posted a screen shot of the ad.  Aaargh!!!!!!!!!

I am not sure if it is the weather, the moon cycle, my female cycle or the fact that I am entering into my 5th (yep, that is right) 5th f'in month of unemployment that is making me sound more like Maxine in those grouchy cartoons than sounding like myself (see dumb cartoon below).  I am also getting so distraught with my lack of leads that becoming an alcoholic or collecting disability pay for doing nothing is becoming more appealing by the minute.  If you are an alcoholic there are recovery services available for you and they will help you find a job if you go into "recovery."  If you are disabled, you can either get free schooling to be retrained or just collect money each month from your mailbox job.  You don't really have to be disabled in the usual manner of loosing body parts either.  You can just have a mental illness.  Mine is unemployment.  It is driving me crazy.  Grrrrr again.

Welcome to Wal-mart where we only hire people who aren't you (as in me)

I have officially hit a new low in my job quest.  I am unemployable as a greeter.  I have to admit that it is true now that I have been turned down by Wal-mart.  Yep.  I was.  I can't believe it.  I feel like a tard.  It was the same feeling I had in college when my perfect 4.0 GPA (yeah, I was an over-achiever then) was marred with my first B.  I remember that I felt as if the world was ending.  The worst part was that my family laughed at me--much like my husband laughed when I told him I didn't make the cut for the Wal-mart job.  (I will say in my family's defense that they laughed at me because that B was issued in an art class, pottery nonetheless.  I sucked at pottery.)  I guess I suck at greeting people, being rude and dismissive and chasing carts, much like the people at Walmart except they get hired to do it.  

I suppose I will have to keep looking.  On the bright side, I didn't receive a rejection from Safeway (yet).    

Flooding Blues

It is pouring here.  The rain only stops intermittently for the last 10 days or so.  Today it is nonstop in downpours.  It makes me sad--not sad because it is raining but sad because it could cause flooding and I am no longer the floodplain administrator over anything more the property where I live.  This is the time of year that CFM's like me actually prepare for.  I don't want to say we hope for them but we do spend hours and hours preparing for action in times of flooding and yet there is nothing for me to do.  Blah!  I wish it was sunny instead and then I wouldn't mind being unemployed as much--although watching out my front window at the cars hydroplaning as they race by is a good way to keep my mind of it.  I just hope no one jumps the curb and hits my parked cars.