Comments (6)

By Isaac Kennedy, June 6, 2011 6:00 am

Work sucks.

Now, I don’t know that I’m entitled to dislike my job more than anyone else. But I’d like to think I have a pretty good reason: I work in a VIP bar that has me face-to-face with spoiled millionaires almost every single day.

And even when there aren’t any millionaires around, there are plenty of a-holes with more money than sense to fill the void. And it’s hard to work when you’re serving people who have everything you want–the money, the power and all the women throwing themselves at them crotch-first.

It’s understandable, right? It’s only human to want to things we can’t have. I’m sure we all feel the same way at some point. We want that promotion… more days off… a tiny bird to keep on our desks that sings Journey songs to get us through the day….

I worked like this for six months. The only thing getting me through each day was the thought of payday–a wonderful day where I could enjoy the fruits of my labour before another week of monotony.

For six months, I was barely scraping by, going through each shift staring at the clock every chance I got, waiting for the sweet moment when I could call it a day.

It was depressing and soul-destroying to have to do something I disliked so much. Every. Single. Day.

But then, I realized something. Something that has made working a breeze, to the point that I not only enjoy, but even look forward to, working now.

I was standing in our back room, wiping sweat from my brow, enjoying a drink I’d just made myself (lemon and lime, with fresh strawberries and raspberries mixed in), when one of the girls who worked on the bar came in and started chatting with me.

Continue reading 'The Little Victories At Work'»

Comments (17)

By Rebecca Sullins, May 2, 2011 6:00 am

Photo by Abby Rae via Flickr

So here I am. I’m wondering what I could have done to prevent any of it, to take it back, to prepare myself.

Three months later, I’m still drawing a blank.

The high-end audio-visual systems industry didn’t feel the sting of the recession right away. We survived the first two or three years on projects that had received funding prior to the burst. And so, I ignored the possibility that I wasn’t safe, and I settled into comfort.

Besides, I’d been working at the same company for almost five years. I was a (mostly) model employee. I stayed late, I worked quickly, and compared to the rest of the people in my department, I came cheap, since I lived in Tennessee as opposed to San Diego.

Still, I spent the last four months at my job with no new projects, nothing specific to work on, and way more Facebook updates than any self-respecting woman closing in on 30 should have. I spent my days writing a manual for the company, fixing standardization problems, and researching anything and everything I thought might be remotely helpful… all the while fighting the feeling that I needed to make a change.

I had even poked around on job sites just to see what was out there. But never once did I entertain the notion that I would need to find a new job.

One extraordinarily cold and icy Friday in January, I was sitting in my office, twiddling my thumbs and trying to find something to do, when the phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line was one I’d talked to nearly every day for almost five years, and yet my stomach twisted and curled when I heard the tone in his voice. I knew that bad news was coming, and it felt like Iwas tied to the tracks, waiting for the train to run me over.

All of a sudden, I was sweating, I was crying, and I felt like I was going to throw up.

There it was. I was being laid off. Continue reading 'I Never Thought I Would Lose My Job, Part 1'»

Comments (20)

By Katie M., October 18, 2010 6:00 am

Katie and Kevin

Yes, folks, here she is. The inspiration for countless posts, the coiner of the term Sneak-a-Date, and clearly the person with the smallest ego on this blog. The one, the only, Katie!

Except, I guess technically with Dennis, there were two Katies. Anyway. I was the first, and I think that should count for something.

Now, I realize that all of you are probably salivating for some salacious gossip from the gal who’s seen Dennis without his shirt or the rest of his clothes. But, I’m saving that for a future post (see how I cleverly lure you into reading me again?) and instead starting with the end–with the part where I find my perfect match, fall madly in love, and walk down the aisle in a charming white dress.

It’s a really boring story.

No seriously, it is. From the standard first-date pasta dinner at an oh-so-moderately priced restaurant, to the follow-up phone call precisely three days later, the whole thing was fraught with a by-the-book dating tranquility that you’d expect to find only in, well, books.

Although, before you get the wrong impression, I should mention that, for our honeymoon, we ran with the bulls in Pamplona. We are not always dull. Nor are we always wise….

Anyway, before all of this serenity hit, I admit my dating life was not what you would call, in a technical sense, sane. It was full of questionable hook-ups, midnight rendezvous, and tangled on-again, off-again relationships overlapping so frequently that even I occasionally lost track of whom I was dating that week.

The stable relationships had their turmoil, too. When I was in them, I found myself asking a never-ending series of questions: Is this the right person for me? Should we move in together? Get married? Get a goldfish? I used to think that this kind of commotion was just part of being with someone. After all, people always said good relationships were hard work. Continue reading 'The Ex-Girlfriend Speaks Up'»

Comments (5)

By Scott Joiner, November 13, 2009 6:39 am

www.freedigitalphotos.net

Writing is a funny thing. The simple act of sitting down in front of a computer to put a few thoughts into print can lead nearly anywhere and sometimes to extraordinary revelations. For example, I stayed up late one night to compose a few paragraphs for a woman I was flirting with, and by the time all was said and done, I was married. Now though, I’m staring at a blank screen and wondering why the insightful and well thought out article on relationships I was intending to write has become a stream of disorganized and unrelated thought.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes–who was reportedly extremely fond of baths–said that something cannot come from nothing. He used that statement as the starting point in the proof of his own existence, immortalized by the words, “I think therefore I am.” Unfortunately, that statement seems to doom the blank page in front of me to a permanent non-article status. I mean, how can it become a “well thought out and insightful” piece on relationships when it currently contains nothing that resembles a coherent thought at all? Continue reading 'Let’s Work It Out'»