The other day I had to pop into the local family-run pharmacy in my neighborhood, and all the townies were there.
"How's it going?", I was like, asking the (quiet) (younger) (backward baseball hatted) (white) guy with an evangelical tattoo who works the counter.
"Same old same old," he was like. "Another day, another holler."
Then, he turned to the (older) (white) woman who was next to him, and he was like, "You ever hear that, Rose, 'Another day, another holler'?".
Then, he said the same thing to the guy who was working sorting pills down the counter.
That day, I also bought a lotto ticket, which I've been meaning to do. It was scratch-off and it cost three bucks, and I won three bucks.
What with my finances, playing the lotto makes a lot of sense; I can afford to eat the losses, but if I win big, I win big.
Honestly, it's not like I have a lot of money in my future otherwise, or at least not for a while.
Saturday, May 27, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017
Odd proclivity with my job.
Since my library job tracks my hours to the minute, I sometimes don't take a shit in the morning or during break, and leave that till when I'm on the clock at work.
Because why not?
You try to nickel-and-dime me, I'll nickel-and-dime you right back.
Because why not?
You try to nickel-and-dime me, I'll nickel-and-dime you right back.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Bonding with a (Chinese-American) restaurant worker.
The other weekend when it was nice out and my dinner plans had fallen through, I went out on a marathon newbarhopping session like across 4 neighborhoods, to hit up some new places that had opened up in each since the last time that I had been through them.
As I was walking from the subway stop up to the first new bar that I had planned on going to, I saw a (Chinese) restaurant off a sunken courtyard area with a row of shops, and though I had known of that place for forever, I somehow just then noticed that the sign out front also indicated that that place was actually a "Restaurant - Lounge".
So, I dawdled on down, and what did I see but a shitty-ass (Chinese) restaurant with a four-seat bar by the front window.
The place was kind of dead, and this (young) (fat) (Latinx) person with a baseball jersey on over all their fat got my beer order, but then a (late middle-aged) (Chinese) woman brought it out, saying that the (Latinx) person was too young to actually serve me.
Later, she sat down at the end of the bar, and we chit-chatted some.
As it turns out, the boss only paid her the state minimum wage, not the higher city minimum wage, so I wrote for her on a napkin the name of a local workers center and the type of records she should keep if she ever left the job and wanted to go for backwages (= hours in and out, any paystubs).
She said that she had the paystubs with hours, and when she went to go do taxes, her accountant said that no taxes had been paid.
She was a citizen, too, she told me when I asked, since sometimes that can make people hesitant to go for backwages, though it doesn't technically affect their ability to do so
"I get lawyer," she was like, and I had to tell her maybe she could if she wanted, but if she had the records, the filing with the state was short and simple and she could do it herself.
"Thank youuuu," she was like, when I was going to leave and we said goodbye.
In any case, to think that this happened in a non-descript (Chinese) restaurant in the city's chi-chi yuppie neighborhood.
Wage theft is everywhere.
As I was walking from the subway stop up to the first new bar that I had planned on going to, I saw a (Chinese) restaurant off a sunken courtyard area with a row of shops, and though I had known of that place for forever, I somehow just then noticed that the sign out front also indicated that that place was actually a "Restaurant - Lounge".
So, I dawdled on down, and what did I see but a shitty-ass (Chinese) restaurant with a four-seat bar by the front window.
The place was kind of dead, and this (young) (fat) (Latinx) person with a baseball jersey on over all their fat got my beer order, but then a (late middle-aged) (Chinese) woman brought it out, saying that the (Latinx) person was too young to actually serve me.
Later, she sat down at the end of the bar, and we chit-chatted some.
As it turns out, the boss only paid her the state minimum wage, not the higher city minimum wage, so I wrote for her on a napkin the name of a local workers center and the type of records she should keep if she ever left the job and wanted to go for backwages (= hours in and out, any paystubs).
She said that she had the paystubs with hours, and when she went to go do taxes, her accountant said that no taxes had been paid.
She was a citizen, too, she told me when I asked, since sometimes that can make people hesitant to go for backwages, though it doesn't technically affect their ability to do so
"I get lawyer," she was like, and I had to tell her maybe she could if she wanted, but if she had the records, the filing with the state was short and simple and she could do it herself.
"Thank youuuu," she was like, when I was going to leave and we said goodbye.
In any case, to think that this happened in a non-descript (Chinese) restaurant in the city's chi-chi yuppie neighborhood.
Wage theft is everywhere.
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Of Labor and Youth.
Young folks are really getting into labor, it seems.
I think they know they're getting such a raw deal, and they know they have little to lose.
So, the fear-tactics on unions making things worse just don't resonate with them, since instead they have a blank slate where they're open to the possibility of collective bargaining, properly explained.
A lot of them also want a fight with a strike.
The library workers I know are just looking for a reason to shut the library down during exams, perhaps along with the coffee shops.
"That would just cause absolute chaos," one of them was like.
Some people I know were also out on strike with striking telecommunications workers, and they also noted the youth of the folks, and the enthusiasm.
I think they know they're getting such a raw deal, and they know they have little to lose.
So, the fear-tactics on unions making things worse just don't resonate with them, since instead they have a blank slate where they're open to the possibility of collective bargaining, properly explained.
A lot of them also want a fight with a strike.
The library workers I know are just looking for a reason to shut the library down during exams, perhaps along with the coffee shops.
"That would just cause absolute chaos," one of them was like.
Some people I know were also out on strike with striking telecommunications workers, and they also noted the youth of the folks, and the enthusiasm.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Crazy advice for the job search.
One of the things that ticks me off lately is people who give clueless advice about job search stuff.
Nowadays, since only 5% of new job growth over the past decade has been the typical 9-to-5 salary job, you have people lined up out the door who have degrees and internship experience in whatever area have you, whereas there wasn't so much a decade ago and you could switch areas more easily.
Like my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the sister of the brother pair) said, "You've just got to get your foot in the door."
(She was jobless for while after law school, then she got $12 an hour contract work reading contracts every once in a while, then she got a $14 an hour job with the city that somehow wasn't salaried, and finally that made her a candidate to get considered for and ultimately get another salaried job with the city, like 3 years or so after she got out of law school... For a long while in there, you couldn't even mention work, since it'd make her all turn inward and pensive.)
So, anyhow, in the position of someone like me, that means doing an internship in an area (which I'm too old for) or volunteerwork (which is tough with two jobs and managing a crazy dissertation committee), and thus I'm kind of at a disadvantage compared to other jobseekers, too, with my degree and work history.
So, that said, what gets me is that people think that there's good jobs just somewhere out there, that I haven't considered.
Like last time I visited my uncle, he was like, "Apply for [X random job]," as if that is somehow feasible or possible when you really have to put your nose down to identify and sell yourself to an area.
My mom, too, was like, "Look for jobs outside of [the city I live] in," when it's not like jobs are on trees elsewhere, and you really aren't a good candidate where they'd consider you unless you can say in your cover letter why you'd be moving to that particular place.
People of a certain generation just don't get how much the economy's decayed, or they can't face it.
Nowadays, since only 5% of new job growth over the past decade has been the typical 9-to-5 salary job, you have people lined up out the door who have degrees and internship experience in whatever area have you, whereas there wasn't so much a decade ago and you could switch areas more easily.
Like my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the sister of the brother pair) said, "You've just got to get your foot in the door."
(She was jobless for while after law school, then she got $12 an hour contract work reading contracts every once in a while, then she got a $14 an hour job with the city that somehow wasn't salaried, and finally that made her a candidate to get considered for and ultimately get another salaried job with the city, like 3 years or so after she got out of law school... For a long while in there, you couldn't even mention work, since it'd make her all turn inward and pensive.)
So, anyhow, in the position of someone like me, that means doing an internship in an area (which I'm too old for) or volunteerwork (which is tough with two jobs and managing a crazy dissertation committee), and thus I'm kind of at a disadvantage compared to other jobseekers, too, with my degree and work history.
So, that said, what gets me is that people think that there's good jobs just somewhere out there, that I haven't considered.
Like last time I visited my uncle, he was like, "Apply for [X random job]," as if that is somehow feasible or possible when you really have to put your nose down to identify and sell yourself to an area.
My mom, too, was like, "Look for jobs outside of [the city I live] in," when it's not like jobs are on trees elsewhere, and you really aren't a good candidate where they'd consider you unless you can say in your cover letter why you'd be moving to that particular place.
People of a certain generation just don't get how much the economy's decayed, or they can't face it.
Monday, May 22, 2017
The graduate student fate...
...of one acquaintance of mine:
$180K in debt, 3 years spent applying to tenure-stream jobs to no avail, and now a $25/hour contract job editing academic books when he can get it.
Honestly, it's almost as if he's a highly educated on-call servant to the very same people who put him into debt.
They get the stable job, a decent income, and respect, not to mention the ability to write shittily and have people like him clean up their mess.
There really are very few things more monstrous than tenured professors, or at least the actual tenured professors who create the general image of tenured professors.
They're totally an out-of-touch, privileged elite who deserve a smackdown.
$180K in debt, 3 years spent applying to tenure-stream jobs to no avail, and now a $25/hour contract job editing academic books when he can get it.
Honestly, it's almost as if he's a highly educated on-call servant to the very same people who put him into debt.
They get the stable job, a decent income, and respect, not to mention the ability to write shittily and have people like him clean up their mess.
There really are very few things more monstrous than tenured professors, or at least the actual tenured professors who create the general image of tenured professors.
They're totally an out-of-touch, privileged elite who deserve a smackdown.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Odd dream nightmare involving a mattress.
The other week I dreamt -
For some reason, I was living in the poorly furnished upper floor of a house owned by a (former) committee member and her husband, so I didn't have to have living expenses and so I could focus on the final "dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's" of my dissertation.
Having already lived there for several weeks and on the verge of moving out and going back to my own apartment, I come back and my mom's there downstairs and there's a dirty mattress on the floor up in my room that I somehow know is there, and my mom says that the committee member found it in the alley and brought it back up.
"But there's probably bed bugs on it!", I'm like.
"I know," she was like, "I kept telling her, but she just wouldn't listen to me."
And then we talk about how the bedbugs might have migrated into my belongings that were mostly in a backpack in the room but otherwise scattered out a bit here and there in there, and how that's probably going to cause problems for me now.
After a bit of stress, I realize that I can probably put all my belongings in a rubberband-closed garbage bag, segregate them at my new apartment, and then do necessary treatments to get rid of any bed bugs that may have crawled out from the mattress and into my stuff...
And then I wake up.
For some reason, I was living in the poorly furnished upper floor of a house owned by a (former) committee member and her husband, so I didn't have to have living expenses and so I could focus on the final "dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's" of my dissertation.
Having already lived there for several weeks and on the verge of moving out and going back to my own apartment, I come back and my mom's there downstairs and there's a dirty mattress on the floor up in my room that I somehow know is there, and my mom says that the committee member found it in the alley and brought it back up.
"But there's probably bed bugs on it!", I'm like.
"I know," she was like, "I kept telling her, but she just wouldn't listen to me."
And then we talk about how the bedbugs might have migrated into my belongings that were mostly in a backpack in the room but otherwise scattered out a bit here and there in there, and how that's probably going to cause problems for me now.
After a bit of stress, I realize that I can probably put all my belongings in a rubberband-closed garbage bag, segregate them at my new apartment, and then do necessary treatments to get rid of any bed bugs that may have crawled out from the mattress and into my stuff...
And then I wake up.
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