Wednesday, April 25, 2007

San Diego

I've been here in San Diego for 5 days now. I can see some of the appeal - warm, sunny weather, the beach..... yeah, that's it. But I don't think I'd want to live here. Charlotte and I went to the grocery store last night. She had to run back to grab something she had forgotten. I was left alone with the cashier.

"Are you from the Northern?" she asked me.

A bit confused, I responded, "no, I'm from Portland, Oregon."

"Oh, I knew you were from somewhere north. It's that whole relaxed vibe you have."

"Ok." But I thought that was odd. Here I am in Southern California, the Mecca of laid-back-ness, to where all surfers and wanna-be surfers flock, where it is assumed that your life is soooo relaxed and worry free. Here I am, coming down from Portland, Oregon where it's overcast for 6 months of the year, where SAD (seasonal affective disorder) bitch slaps most inhabitants, and I'm being called laid back? Wow.

But it seems to be real. Charlotte talks about the fast-paced life here. Everyone is in a rush to go somewhere, be someone, do something. Nothing is relaxed here. It's very, very expensive here. In order to make a living you have to work hard, have roommates, live as inexpensively as possible. At a coffee house I am ignored as I stand at the counter. It seemed like actually making contact with me was awkward. (Whereas in Portland everyone talks to you.)

So maybe Southern Cali isn't the mecca it's reputation leads us all to believe.

Friday, April 20, 2007

When it rains...

Of all the companies I had applied with, the only one that I hadn't received some sort of reply from was The Joinery. They have a reputation for making really nice furniture, and for being a place where woodworkers want to work, so I was definately interested in talking to them. I had sent them a resume way back in March. But no reply, no "thanks but we're not currently hiring" email even.

I had applied with them when I first moved here back in 2002. They ended up calling me to interview after I had been working for a company for about two months. I was so excited. I didn't like the job I had (low pay, crazy owner, jerk of a manager), and I was seriously excited about the Joinery reputation. Would they really hire me?

I went in for an interview after a full day of work at my crappy job. I changed clothes in the bathroom of a coffeehouse. I was pumped. I went in, met the owners and started the interview. At some point in the middle of the chat, I realized my posture was horrible. I was slouching and my legs were splayed out like I was a trucker drinking a beer at a local watering hole. Now, I know this is a physical, blue-collar type job, but I realized I should at least be attempting to make a better impression. I straightened up, crossed my legs and continued to answer the questions they threw at me. Poorly. I remember saying exactly the wrong thing to one question. At that point I knew they wouldn't call me back, and they didn't.

Flash forward to this week. I've just accepted a job with Mike, my old boss. It's all good. That same afternoon I get a call from the Joinery. They are interested in interviewing me.

Talk about bad timing.....

What do I do? I'm really no good at lying. I wouldn't feel comfortable only saying that I have a job offer on the table (conveniently neglecting to say I've already accepted the offer), but I would also like to get my face out in front of them again, if only to correct the mistakes I made so many years ago. I called them back, ready to tell them "thanks but no thanks", but the guy I talked to still seemed interested in talking to me anyway. Hmmm. Ok, I told you I already have a job, you've told me you couldn't meet the pay rate (at least not right away), but you still wouldn't mind me coming in to talk? Great! Eleven-thirty tomorrow morning would be fine!

The interview went well enough. I was oddly nervous. In other interviews I've had recently I was never nervous. Was it the memory of my previous interview with them, or did I actually want to get a job with them?

I mentioned to Gary that I had interviewed with them years ago and that it had been a bad interview. He remembered me, but didn't remember the interview. So I didn't go into details. We talked about this and that, the whole process being a bit odd since we both knew that I was already employed. But he said enough and I thought about things enough to seriously consider whether I should reconsider working for Mike.

I went for a long walk by myself afterwards to think about it all. Basically I would be giving up a good job that pays more than the industry standard for the option to interview at the Joinery. Although I would like to learn more about furniture making, and think the Joinery is a great place to do so, I'm going to turn them down. They don't have a job offer, and even if they did the wage would be 3 or 4 dollars less.

I'll keep them on my list of places to contact when I'm ready to move on again. But it was nice being wanted by them.

Employed Again!

My old boss finally offered me a job. And a good deal on it too. He is bringing me in at the same pay rate he was paying me two years ago, and I think my insurance will start up faster than it would have if I were a new employee. The only catch is that the job doesn't start for another week.

Fine by me.

I have a freebie ticket on Southwest airlines, so I'm going to head south to San Diego and Los Angeles to see friends this week. Funny how I've been traveling so much while I'm unemployed. No better time to do it though.

Monday, April 30th. That's my first day back. In the meantime, I'm outta here!

Sueños

I'm dreaming again. For a long time I wasn't having dreams at night. Most of my nights in Mexico were dreamless. Every once in a while I'd have a dream, but it was usually lightweight, nothing of substance.

For the past three nights I've had dreams. Some of them are easily relatable to my daily, waking life. Dreams about Luis, dreams about jobs. But some aren't so easily deciphered.

But I feel better having dreams. Somehow I think they clear out my mind of stray thoughts that would otherwise just rattle around and distract me.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

kitty kitty

I just let a black cat cross my path. Have I just doomed myself to some bad luck?

I was walking to my local coffee house and a small black cat was trying to cross over Belmont Street, a somewhat busy main street. As it ran across the lanes of traffic and towards me, I thought that I should help the cat somehow. I'd hate to make it stop in it's tracks and thus get run over by a careless driver. So I stopped in my tracks to let it have the right of way and a safe passage to the other side of the street.

I think the good karma of helping another sentient being offsets any bad black cat mojo. At least that's what I'm telling myself until I find out otherwise.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Watch your breath

Last week I went to a meditation center close by my house. They have an open meditation session every Tuesday evening. I hadn't meditated for a long time - I think the last time was when I was studying Tai Chi in Atlanta - but I felt the need to just let my mind loose for a while. There was a member there who gave an introduction to the five newbies who showed up that night. He was very nice and calm. I ended up talking to him after meditation and got a good feeling off him. During this week I couldn't help but get the feeling that he was thinking of me. Not in a romantic or sexual way, but in a supportive way. Like he was wondering to himself, "What happened to that girl who came in this week? I hope she is doing well." It was a good feeling, even if it was all made up in my own mind.

Frustrated

Being back has its good days and its bad days. Today is bad. Last Friday was bad. Of course, that was Friday the 13th, so maybe there were other forces going on.

Friday I was working on my two day try-out with MADE Designs. They are a few blocks away from my house, which is convenient. But they are a newer company (only 3 years old), so they don’t seem to know exactly how to interview, hire and have employees. The one guy they already had on staff told me that the two owners were pretty tight-lipped when it came to giving him direction for his job. Not out of meanness, but out of inexperience. Allowing employees to do things their own way isn’t always a bad thing, but I read it as being inexperienced with having to teach employees how you want them to work. I just don’t think they have ever had to think about keeping their vision alive and on track while bringing new people into their company.

They had given me an odd corner cabinet – nothing too crazy, but they use mitres on every joint, which isn’t standard in the industry. So I was battling that hurdle. And there were a few times I lost the battle. Since I had already worked on the one cabinet for a full day, by Friday afternoon I was getting frustrated at not being further along. So when something went wrong, I was frustrated and angry at myself.

Then I got a call from my old boss Mike. He said that he was leaving the hiring and firing of employees to his newly promoted shop manager, and that I should expect to get a call from Scott, the manager, to talk to me about coming in for an interview. I did get the call and set up a time on Tuesday morning to go meet Scott. But I was insulted that I was being asked to interview for a position that I had already held for two years and for which Mike had said that he would hire me back into.

I’m actually getting frustrated with Mike. We have been talking since I’ve been back about getting me back into his shop. Recently I had been leaving him alone as I didn’t want him to feel like I was pestering him. But he has been getting a lot of calls from the other people who I’ve been applying with. So there is a bit of pressure on him, I guess. On Thursday afternoon he called me up to ask about the most recent call he had received. He wanted to know how bad I wanted to work with the guy, what I knew about his shop already, and other stuff like that. It was odd. In this case I had found the company in the Yellow Pages, and sent my resume in to them blind. I knew very little about the company aside from what I had seen on their website. And Mike hadn’t asked me about other companies I had applied to even though he had been getting calls. So what was so new about this one? If he is feeling the pressure to hire me sooner than he would feel comfortable at the risk of losing me to a competitor, that’s his problem. In that case he needs to decide what is more important to him. Either hire me or let me loose. Don’t play games like this with me.

Very frustrating.

I’m also on hold with MADE as they had also tested someone else out last week. Now Bo and Tim are talking with each other and making their decision. Fair enough. But I have no idea where I stand with them. I realized on Sunday morning that I had seen the cabinet the other guy had been asked to make. I didn’t realize it while I was working there for the two days, but suddenly I remembered having to walk around it while I was there. And I realized I got the harder cabinet. His cabinet was your basic square cabinet. Essentially the only challenge he would have had (if he had the same level of experience I had) would be to deal with mitering the corners. My cabinet was L-shaped. I had to deal with more mitres and more issues than he would have. So does that play into my favor? Or did they set me up to fail? Yet another sign that they didn’t think out their trial period concept. If they were trying to judge two people, it would make more sense to have them both make the same cabinet, or make similar cabinets. Now they have to compare apples and oranges in order to make their decision. Again, not my problem, but frustrating nonetheless.

So Monday April 16th isn’t much better than Friday April 13th.

Hard to Leave, Harder to Stay

The week in Mexico went well. Not perfect, but ok. Luis and I got some alone time by going to a gorgeous beach for two days. (Btw, if I ever live in Mexico again, I will be taking friends to this beach, so remember that and call me up when I'm down there again.) The next day we went to a close-by water slide park/spa with Laura and family. The spa was pretty new and very well done. It's a natural hot spring and they had two steam rooms, two jacuzzis, a mud area where you can pack on the mineral-rich mud, a juice bar and massage rooms. Nice.

The next day I packed my stuff and left Mexico.

I was having such a good time. This is what I had wanted to do more of when I was living here. I had wanted to travel around, see the country, explore the region. Instead we spent what felt like way too much time in Tuxpan. So all of a sudden it felt a bit difficult to leave - if life could be like this here in Mexico, I would stay. But, following up that thought was a quick reality check. It wasn't like that. It would be more isolation, more depression, more frustration. Really, it's better to leave on a high note.