-sigh-

As many of you know, I set out last year to prove that I could not only survive, but make a decent life for myself by being who I am and using my natural skills without having to prostitute myself to bullies, thieves, liars, and abusers.....looks like I was wrong.

I apologize for not staying up to date with this section of my blog. I started a third job and my blogging efforts have mostly been devoted to other things (like atheism and penises, though not usually at the same time). Allow me to bring everyone up to speed.

For those that don't know me, I'm a huge animal lover. Through a friend, I met a couple that was runs a small pet boutique that carries clothes, accessories, and high end foods for pets. Customers would bring pets in and let them try things on and I'd get to spoil them with treats for a little bit. The hours were perfect for me and it paid just enough to cover the majority of my living expenses.

I was honestly thrilled. This wasn't like the retail I had worked in the past. The owners were people who've worked hard for a living themselves, were kind hearted, generous, intelligent and were genuine animal lovers. I enjoyed the job. Sure, some customers were a pain, but I never expressed that because it goes with the territory. I loved getting to know them and their pets. It was a great way to get my animal love fix in a few times a week and to make pretty decent money at it too.

I was actually really happy. I thought I had found a niche. A perfect job to fund my life while I pursue my real dreams. Did I intend to work there forever? Probably not, but I figured it would be a long term gig that would really allow me to pefect my art. Enter uppity bitch with an over inflated sense of entitlement.

For those that don't have dogs or just plain haven't noticed, a lot of time dog food comes in rather large, heavy bags, usually starting at about 30lbs. I work out, 30 lbs isn't so heavy, but this is a small shop, so several types of food can be mixed in together and the 30lb bag someone might want might be lodged under five other 30lb bags, making it sometimes difficult to find product info.

Naturally, this particular customer wanted price info for the bag on the bottom. I tried my best to wrestle it out. I apologized that it was taking a while to get it out and that I would look in the computer for the price instead. When I searched for the item in the computer, I couldn't find it. I said, "Oh...hmm...I can't seem to find it. Let me try a few different search terms."

I still couldn't find it, so I went back to wrestling the bag out from under the other four or five heavy bags. I was visibly struggling with it and said, "Sorry it's taking a while, these can be heavy." I finally got her bag out and carried it to the counter for her and rang her up.

Somehow, in her uppity bitch brain, that became, "That's too heavy. I can't get it out. I can't find it in the system. I can't help you." I honestly have NO idea how it could have come across that way. I have NEVER told a customer that I couldn't help them, or if I couldn't, I'd call someone who could.

She called my boss to inform him of her incredibly distorted version of the event. Apparently, I said those things to her twice.....although I actually never said them even once. I have NEVER told a customer I couldn't help them. At the very worst, I've told them, "I don't know, but let me get your info and I'll ask my boss and then I'll call you back. Would that be okay?"

...which, by the way, is something the bosses constantly encouraged me to do if I didn't know how to handle a certain situation. I don't know who it was that taught me this, but somehow in life, I got the impression that people mean things that they tell you over and over.

So, of course, there were situations I sometimes didn't know how to handle, but that's always to be expected with a new employee. I always did my best to find out what to do even if I didn't know and I think as a new employee, I should be given a little extra license to do so. Did I mention that I never had the opportunity to graduate from "new employee?" I was fired even as a new employee. I feel as if I was fired FOR BEING a new employee; for not having a chip implanted into my brain that taught me all vital info about any and every possible situation.

I was hired right before Christmas and my first day "on my own" was December 26. So, I have had slightly over a month to learn the ropes and despite having brought in several new customers, having organized the store so that it doesn't always look like a hurricane took over, and and having bent over backwards for customers EVERY SINGLE DAY, I guess a month is too long a time to go without knowing everything. The owners gave me a modest THREE DAYS of training before completely throwing me to the wolves. At the time, I thought it was adequate because they seemed to trust me, support me and have my back. I was wrong about that too.

I was told on Wednesday that I would be "talked to" on Friday. I knew "talked to" meant "fired," but I kept my hopes up. So, this morning, as soon as I came in, my boss was there, dressed formally, which is rare; not a good sign. So he hast me down and pretty immediately told me that it "wasn't working out." He told me vaguely about the above customer complaint and didn't ask my side of the story at all. He did, however, tell me that he talked to that customer and the customer was no longer angry and would be returning to the store. Shortly after, he contradicted himself by saying, "Losing a customer in a business this small is something that we can't have, no matter what."

I felt that there must have been SEVERAL other issues to make him come to that conclusion and asked if I could please know what they were. He mentioned another customer "issue" that had taken place, but I had told him about it and apologized and tried to resolve it already. In this case, the customer asked me a question I didn't know the answer to, so I asked if I could take her info and call her right back, she became instantly agitated with me, told me, "Everyone else that's ever worked there knows," what she's talking about. She would not let me take her info, find the answer, and call her back. How that is bad service on my part, I don't know. Again, he didn't want to hear my side of it because his mind was made up.

He ended the narrative with one of those socially acceptable lies that people find the necessity to tell, that in my view are just plan cruel, "We did enjoy having you for the short time you were here, for what it's worth."

"Which is nothing," I couldn't help but reply. Admittedly unprofessional though it was, it was highly appropriate for the situation. What harm could be done? No one has to know I worked there. It was such a short time that I won't even pollute my resume with it. Besides, I'm not really worried about getting a reference from people who threw me into a maelstrom with a paddle boat and assured me I'd survive and they'd help, but let me drown immediately.

Two things hurt me most. One is that I DID try my best with that job and I know I made mistakes, but when I did, I admitted it and did my best to resolve them immediately. I DID work very hard there and I brought in new customers, sold people a lot of things because I genuinely wanted to help them (I didn't get bonuses or commission) and make them happy. I DID please most of the customers; at least once a day someone told me, "Thank you. You've been very helpful." I went out of my way to tell people about the business and to promote the business, even without being asked. If it wasn't busy in the store, which is most of the time, there were I would often go outside and catch people walking their dogs, invite them in, tell them about the store, and end up recommending them something that they would purchase or would actually come back a few days later and purchase. What kind of part time retail associate is going to do all of that? A damn rare, damn good one. Seriously, tell me where you will find an employee not only willing to do those things, but that does them regularly without being asked? Yet, all that (and then some) still wasn't good enough.

Two, and more painful, the sociopathic minority of people who are completely self absorbed, who have lost touch with reality, who never think about the struggles of others, who never realize how good their lives are, who thrive off of being petty, tiny, life-ruining motherfuckers have now been given just one more bit of justification in being such. They think they can get away with being assholes because the world bends over backwards to prove to them that they can. I suppose I can't complain because I'm guilty of serving them as well.

I don't honestly know where this leaves me. I want to say, "Hey, it's just one job, it's just a handful of assholes. Most people aren't that unreasonable. Tomorrow is another day and that if this didn't work, something else will. I don't have to sell myself mind, body and soul to the hate-filled handful." The problem is, the hate-filled handful that does see life that way are the ones that are on top of the world. They control everything because they don't have moral compasses and they don't mind squashing people's spirits like ants so long as they serve themselves. That's how they get ahead. No one ever teaches them otherwise because anyone who tries gets vaporized. Tragically, because we all need to eat and they seem to be the ones with all the food, even if is is laced with diazinon, so we're all just too happy to be ants.

Well, FECK

Well, ViewsHound, which was the main forum for my writing...you know, one that paid and one that people actually read, has closed. Sooooooo instead of thousands of people reasing my work....ZEROES of them will. I'm pretty bummed.

Combined with what's been happening with my other business, I'm worried that this quest to find a better life for myself is a joke. DEPRESSED!

Resumes n stuff

There are very few jobs that you can get without submitting a resume unless you work for your parents or something.

This company claims to create your resume and if you don't get a job within 60 days, you get your money back +$50.

No, I'm not a representative of the site and I'm not getting any money from this. A dear friend of mine recommended it to me. She has used it twice before, once when they weren't successful, so she made $50, and once where they were successful and she got a new job. I haven't tried it because I'm cooking something up which I'll reveal later when it's the right time.

Two ways to make money writing

You're probably not going to get rich writing for a living, but here are two places I've written for. I've actually been able to pay a few bills with money I've earned from these two sources. If you have a similar goal as mine of becoming your own boss and deriving income from many sources, these are great ways to do so. I am, in no way, affiliated with these sites or am I earning referral bonuses by recommending them to you.

Textbroker.com:
You'll be commissioned to write ad copy, reviews, articles, blurbs, etc. You submit a first piece and you are given a star rating anywhere from 1 to 5. The original rating dictates how much you make per word. Supposedly, you can increase or decrease your star rating after you write several pieces. Be forewarned, the average is a penny a word. Still, it's better than nothing per word.

There is a database of available work, or "orders," organized by the client's requested topic area and star rating. You can write for any level below yours. For example, if you have a 5-star rating, you can write for all star levels. If you have a 3-star level, you can write 2-star and 1-star articles. There are also chances to earn more than your star rating dictates if you are willing and able to write about very specific topics as part of a "team order." You must apply for these positions and they often take a lot of research and/or inside knowledge. The highest price I've seen listed is 7¢/word and that's extremely rare. The average is still 1¢-2¢.

Pros: You can get some experience in copy writing. You can work whenever you want. It's possible you can be given direct orders, meant specifically for you.
Cons: Low pay and availability. If you're a 3-star writer or below, there might not be much commissioned work for you. Most writers are rated 2-star or 3-star. Plus, with higher star writers being able to write at those levels as well, you're really scratching and biting for work.

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Viewshound.com:
You can submit articles or creative pieces about almost any topic and you're eligible for a daily prize. There's Gold - $50, Silver - $30, Bronze - $20 and Photo of the Day - $10. There is no voting system (though they temporarily had an Author Prize of $10 based on votes on top of the regular prizes). How often you win really depends on how well you write. Having a lot of views, shares, "likes," and comments only affects your chances of winning nominally. All articles are judged by the editors who also award the prizes. Not to toot my own horn but, I win fairly consistently and I usually submit once or twice a week. I've won all of the available prizes at least once (not including the author prize). Last I heard, they are considering setting up a similar system to textbroker.com in addition to the daily prizes, but so far, it has not been enacted.

Pros: You can write about virtually anything that you want. You can submit whenever you want. You can win up to $50/article. You have the chance to win every day you submit something. You can use it to drive traffic to your blog, twitter, youtube, etc. There is no exclusivity policy.
Cons: It takes up to a week for your articles to be approved unless they are genuinely time-sensitive pieces. There is no way to predict how much you'll earn because you never know if you're going to win. You may never win.

Good luck and happy writing!

Job entitlement: a never-ending cycle of frustration

Entitlement is probably the single biggest factor that holds us all back as human beings, not just in the job market. Entitlement is a complete lack of gratitude and responsibility. It gives us delusions of grandeur. It makes us pass up opportunities and pass over people because we think we "deserve" something "better."

We all think we understand that life isn't fair and that nothing is guaranteed, but few of us have truly internalized the idea. Usually, at best, it's a polite way to tell someone you don't care about their problems. Then, when it's your turn for "undeserved" unpleasantry, just observe how much it stings when someone employs the same technique on you.

It's time to let go of entitlement. You are not not and never will be entitled to ANYTHING, not clean air, not clean water, not food, not shelter, not friends, not family, not love, not sex, not companionship, not medical care, not land, not education, not health, and certainly not a decent career. If you are lucky enough to have any or all of these things, at any point in life, any or all of them can disappear. When you cling to entitlement, you suffer even more.

When it comes to finding work, many of us have completely self-fabricated ideas about what we "deserve."

"I went to college, I shouldn't have to work for THIS wage."
"I've been in this industry for 20 years, I shouldn't have to do THAT."
"My friend owns the company, why should I do THIS?"
"THAT is a job for losers."
"I used to THIS for $70k, I'm not doing THAT for $30k."

We've all thought and said these things, but have never stopped to put entitlement into the equation. Why shouldn't you have to do this or that? What makes you so special? Other people are just not as awesome as you, so they should have to do it?
If you want to keep all those other things you're lucky to have but are not entitled to, doing a job that is "below" you might be necessary. Once you let go of entitlement, your constant misery of not getting the job you "deserve" will evaporate with it.

Of course, this isn't to steer people to the opposite. No one is asking you to do anything against your base morals. No one is asking you to prostitute yourself out to the point where you'll do anything for money. You're only being asked to change your perspective. You may have to temporarily take something "below you" to help pay your bills, you can still enjoy it in some way.

If you spend the whole time pissing and moaning about how it's beneath you, how much money you used to make, how you never used to have to do stuff like this, first of all, you're just angering yourself. Second, people notice that attitude in your words, your body language and your quality of work. It makes you look bad.

Your superiors will notice and you won't ever get ahead. Plus, you don't know who they know. Sure, it might be a manager at McDonald's, but she might know someone who is a manager at IBM. Do you think YOUR name is the one she'll pass along when her friend tells her, "We really need to hire some people, but we don't want to put out job ads?"

Worse than that, your co-workers will notice. Why is it worse? There are a lot more of them then there are superiors, you don't know who they know, and your very presence will insult them. A job that you think is below you is something that someone else worked very hard to obtain and is proud of, so who are you to spit on their achievement? Don't forget, people who work that hard and maintain a good attitude are likely to succeed. Once again, when they do, do you think your name will be the one that they recommend to anyone?

It's so hard to remember these things when you're suffering, when you've gone through so much loss, and so many of us have. It's reasonable to mope and cry and resent your situation, but that can't go on forever. So many people spend decades stuck in this rut of entitlement-created misery. Some NEVER recover. It's natural to want the best for yourself, but it's foolish to expect it.

If you're stuck in one of these ruts, there is one simple way out: gratitude.

Get rich slowly

Here is a site where you can make a few pennies a day. I know, it's not much, but every bit helps!

Instant Cash Sweepstakes
The name sounds like a scam, but I assure you 100% that it's not. It's completely free, you're never charged money at any point, and your email address and personal info aren't sold off to everyone. I've personally used it for a few months now. I wouldn't BS you guys.

You answer really quick little surveys, usually three questions, and you get "prizes" in the form of a few pennies, tickets, and coins. The pennies are real money. The minimum payment is $2, so you can get paid pretty fast. Tickets are used in the daily $50 lotto drawing. Coins are....I dunno. Something about "buying" extra tickets.

You can only do so many surveys at a time. They let you do about five minutes worth and then you have to wait three hours to try again. I'm not sure why they cap it like that, but they do.

Anyway, hopefully you can earn a few cents! :D

Forget Wall St., Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue!!

Billionaires don't give a shit about you. Everyone knows that. That's part of why people are angry at them (although the real reason is jealousy). They seem not to care about anyone but themselves, we don't know them personally so we can't say, but they SEEM not to care about anyone else, and because of their unlimited finances, they can change the world to suit themselves, or so we're told.

Before we get any further into the argument, without googling it, can you even name five names that belong to the 1%? I'm not asking so I can call out your hypocrisy (although...), but you need to know who your enemy is, what exactly they're doing wrong, and what exactly they could be doing right. Otherwise, you're shooting without a target. Don't waste your time protesting a cause you don't really know anything about. Honestly, I think a big part of this movement is people who are broke and angry and are looking to the most obvious scapegoat, but not the correct one. So, until you can name five names off the top of your head, what they're doing wrong, what they could be doing right, then shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about. If you're not questioning these things yourself, then you need to go back to work and stop costing the rest of us millions of dollars in property damage and police overtime by protesting a cause you can't even really explain, ok? Otherwise, you're pretty clearly just going to protests hoping to get laid by some hot, hippy chick.

If you have questioned all these things and you really know your stuff, that's great. You should be sharing this information with people. The problem is that you're sharing the wrong information. As we've established, billionaires don't give a crap about us. No one's arguing that. However, there's a huge group of people that vowed to care about us and that we pay to take care of us and they're getting away scott free; and it's not JUST republicans. It's ALL politicians, republican, democrat, independent, whatever. Do you really think that only republicans are being bought off? Please. If you do, you're part of the group that needs to shut the fuck up and go back to work, or at least spend a little time researching public campaign finance.

Why are you not occupying Pennsylvania Avenue? The real problem is that the billionaires have bought off the government, right? I don't think anybody in the 99% would deny that. However, who could blame the billionaires? If you had billions of dollars, wouldn't you use it to change the world in a way you think is best? We all love to sit around and blow ourselves and say things like, "If I had a billion dollars, I'd end world hunger, I'd end war, I'd fund cures for diseases and give money to organic farmers and really make this world a better place!"

Well, this isn't Miss America. You have NO IDEA what you would do if you had a billion dollars because you've never had a billion dollars. I love all these so-called liberals who say it's wrong to judge other people, but then turning around and judging people. Never judge a man til you've walk a mile in his shoes. You've probably never even seen $5000 hand made Italian designer shoes, let alone walked in 'em, so shut the fuck up. You have no idea what your life would be like if you were a billionaire. So, forget that hypothetical bullshit, it's not doing you or anyone else any favors. In fact, it's making you look like a complete jackass. It's like saying, "If I were Lady Gaga, I wouldn't have worn a dress made of beef." Well, how do you know? You're not Lady Gaga.

All that aside, there's another huge problem with the whole movement. Who the fuck do you think you are running around telling people what to do with their money? You're angry because the billionaires buy off the government, so the government blows the billionaires and then uses YOUR money to clean up the stains. In essence, people you don't agree with are telling you how to spend your money. So, who the fuck do you think you are telling anyone else how they should spend their money?

Your anger could not possibly be more misguided. You know billionaires don't care about you, you don't know what it's like to be a billionaire, but you know you can't tell anybody, billionaire or not, how to spend their money. Well, you can tell them, but they're not going to listen.

Politicians, on the other hand, vow to serve the public. They devote their lives to serving the public. They take money from the public, supposedly so they can use it to serve the public. Yet they don't. They serve the 1%. So, who's the whore? The billionaires who offer to pay for dirty deeds, or the politicians who promised you that they'd do good deeds, but are really willing to do all kinds of dirty deeds for the right price?

Billionaires NEVER promised to serve you. Billionaires NEVER claimed to be looking out for your best interest. Billionaires NEVER put America first. You have NO control over billionaires. Billionaire is not an elected office. Who's really lying to you? Who's really responsible? Whose mind do you really have the power to change? Who should you be knocking on their ass for lying about caring for you, taking your money, pissing it away, then lining their pockets with blood money?

Fuck Wall St. Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue!