Kevin It’s a mid-summer evening, and the job hunt’s going nowhere. I found my portable radio and turned it to the AM station for the live broadcast from the baseball stadium. I can’t get it to come in worth a damn on my stereo. I’ve got both windows open, and I’m having dinner by the computer. It sorta feels like I’m dining al fresco in a way, haha.
Just like at the old house before the window air conditioner unit went in.
Damn, I’m so glad to be rid of that horrible thing. I never realized what an energy-suck and money-suck that thing was until now, and it’s not even getting into how difficult it was for me to carry to and from the porch twice a year.
The work from my day job has been sporadic, in fits and starts. No luck with the job search. Same old song and dance of “we’ll give you a call if something comes up,” “still taking apps,” and my favorite, “fill out an application and we’ll see what we can do,” or similar sentiments.
They all mean the same thing as far as I’m concerned: they’d sooner die than hire someone who’s interested in helping them out and contributing to their success.
Spoiler alert: more than one of those businesses have a “Help Wanted” sign in their window, and at least one of them still has it up.
Yeah, they obviously don’t need or want the help that bad if they’re gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?
Whatever. What becomes of those companies is now officially no longer my circus or my monkeys. They’re on their own. They’ve made it clear they can live without my help, same way the restaurant I had the job interview at back in April.
Nice to see they’re doing just great after all. Looks like the pandemic’s left them no worse from the wear, at least from my vantage point. Idk what’s going on behind the scenes, but maybe now, they can finally take down that “Help Wanted” sign?
It’s always great seeing businesses succeed in times of difficult business landscapes. I’m not being facetious. I genuinely mean that for every business, and yes, that includes the restaurant I applied at too.
Onward and upward to the next opportunity. I applied for some remote work as freelance help roughly a month ago, and I won’t say the name of it or the specific job title. I finally heard back from them, when they sent me the information packet and instructed me to fill out the application and return it “at my convenience.”
I reviewed the information packet, and found some deeply troubling statements in it. Calling the pay rate they were quoting for the amount of work and the quality of the work within the unrealistically short time frames they demanded a pittance about sums it up. It prompted me to look the company up online, and I came across some equally appalling revelations from former employees and contractors. I won’t mention the specific allegations, but they were basically horror stories. They were all similar to one another, and over the course of several years.
They mentioned the disregard and disrespect dished out to them often from the formal employees, as well as moving goalposts when it comes to the work they create for them.
To play devil’s advocate, the people who wrote those reviews were probably not in the best of headspaces when they posted them, which is totally understandable, and that could also be a contributing factor. However, there’s a definite pattern to the reviews, so I’m inclined to believe them.
I’m betting dollars to donuts that if they found someone in the league of Hartley Shawcross, Stephen King, or Walter Cronkite all rolled into one, these flaming dickbags would probably still find something to say about them.
In any case, I won’t be moving forward with them to find out whether or not they’ve cleaned up their act toward their help.
Instead I’ll put the effort I would have spent on them, had I moved forward with them, on my own work, and continue moving on to find other opportunities.
I’ve been slamming the pedal to the metal with what little work I’ve picked up through the day job, and duking out 3 to 6 mile walks for this new venture I’ve been exploring for fun.
That walk is my time off. I’ve secretly been sneaking multiple cans of Bang and generic Bang energy drinks per day just to function. Wow, what a completely brilliant plan! Now I can really show everyone what they’re missing out on, and show everyone I can do it on my own.
It worked until it didn’t. I basically outed myself when my injury limited my mobility worse than it usually does on account of the jitters and the shakes I got, and I’m sure it being close to my time of the month didn’t help my emotions any.
I wanted it all to stop.
I won’t mention how many of those cans I’d sucked down that day. I will say that it was still in the single digits. The final straw with that stuff came recently, so no need to worry about that, readers.
Seriously, if I never see another Bang or its’ generic knockoffs again, it’ll still be far too soon. I’m so sick of that shyt that it’s not even funny anymore.
One of those flavors tastes like Children’s Dimetapp anyway. Calorie-free or not, I’m sticking with the good ol’ fashioned Dew Zero Sugar instead.
OMG, Mountain Dew! It was one of my favorites before I lost the weight. Those late-night walks or bike rides to the convenience store to grab some nachos and two bottles of Mountain Dew, one regular, and one in whatever new flavor they put out were always a treat.
That convenience store no longer carries the nachos. The one closer to the part of the neighborhood we used to live in probably still has ’em. It’s been a minute since the last time I went in there, though. Come to think of it, I’ve got a bag of tortilla chips knocking around in the pantry, and I’ve been meaning to have those sometime.
At the end of the day, this job search is really getting to me. Nothing but endless rejections, ice-cold radio silence, scammers, and companies with astronomical expectations while paying their freelancers next to nothing. I long for something to change, and at this juncture, it feels like this is my lot in life after all.
I really hope something changes soon. I’m sick and tired of living like this. I hope that the people at every single company looking to use me, and at every single company who slammed their doors in my face will never find themselves in this situation. I mean it.
