understanding the banshee
Does anyone have any idea how easy it is to get a relatively decent job through a temp agency? Direct hire or temp-to-hire? I've been sending out a thousand resumes (well, not a thousand, but a lot anyway), and no bites yet. I got my current job through such an agency - but of course I hate my job (and am none too fond of the agency). Of course the agents I went through seem to work less for that agency than for Apple - they're a bit, I don't know...inbred, somehow. Corrupted. I don't like them, I don't trust them, and this place is like some sort of static upon my soul, if I move left to joy, it moves right to block me. If I move right to comfort, it counters with a leftward lunge towards disarray. It is not healthy.
Speaking of health, the agency is giving me the runaround where insurance is concerned. It's one of the first things I brought up, and they said an information packet was in the mail. None arrived. I brought it up - and they said oh, it takes a bit, but definitely let us know by such-and-such a date if it hasn't shown up by then. Date came and went. I let them know. They replied with an email whose tone made me feel like five-year-old being pouty and unreasonable and wanting all the red crayons to myself. Of course I shouldn't have it yet - it takes yet more time! How could I not know? But if I haven't heard by this other date, of course let them know. There's nothing they can do about it anyway, but let them know in any case. So that they can tell me to wait some more. And anyway, the cost of the insurance is about a quarter of what I'm paid.
Of course Apple is in no rush to make people permanent. In fact they seem to have the whole temp-swap process pretty well institutionalized. Although if they wanted to make me permanent it's not the sort of job I'd really want. One of the things that has kept me going is the knowledge that this thing only lasts 9 months or so - unless they extend the contract, which I think they only do once.
I feel on the verge of just giving up. Giving in. Saying: jobs suck, I have a job, my job sucks, oh well. But I know it doesn't have to be like that.
I am capable of far more than this job can offer me. I should be the boss of my bosses, not their underling/plaything. My educational...wanderings...have limited the room I'd otherwise have to move. The job market does as well. But still, even if I'm going to be stuck in a (relatively) low-paid dead-end job, can't it be one that is more personally meaningful? I don't know that I could work a soul-sucking job even if it paid a fortune - but hey, at least it'd be something. I'm pretty damned willing to work a meaningful job for a pittance, however. Right now I've got neither fortune nor meaning. Just, well...pittance.
I want to just walk out. Every morning I stand in the shower and I think, "I just should not go in. I'll not go in and instead I'll go to some other agency and find a job." And all day I think, "How did my life come to this? I had promise once, I know it. Promise for something more than....this." And all night I think, "My free time goes too quickly, and tomorrow comes too soon." Insert here: wail of despair. And on my days off, the ones that can be full of promise and productivity? I curl up into a cocoon of denial. I don't despair of my job. What job? Don't know what you're talking about. This is Friday. This is Thursday. I do not know of this "Saturday" you speak of. This "Monday." Sounds like devil-talk to me!
That is, of course, that tendency of mine, related to the aforementioned academic wanderings. What do you want to be when you grow up? Too much pressure! How about instead...I don't grow up? That'll work.
And it does, for a time.
And then you want to grow up anyway. But you've lost your way. Birds ate the trail of crumbs you've left in the woods. The wrong people have been alienated. The wrong bridges burned. And time, you find, is a tide, pulling you away from the shore of your childhood, and safety, and comfort. And me, without my SCUBA gear...
That gear, that's the sort of thing that turns a daunting sea, the deep, the drink, into a wonderland of coral and promise and life. And that's the gear you don't think you need until it's too late. And then what?
I'll tell you what: and then Apple.
So... does anyone know, please, is it relatively easy to get some other job, through some other agency? Even one that sucks... just one that doesn't suck like this?
I'd be much obliged.
Speaking of health, the agency is giving me the runaround where insurance is concerned. It's one of the first things I brought up, and they said an information packet was in the mail. None arrived. I brought it up - and they said oh, it takes a bit, but definitely let us know by such-and-such a date if it hasn't shown up by then. Date came and went. I let them know. They replied with an email whose tone made me feel like five-year-old being pouty and unreasonable and wanting all the red crayons to myself. Of course I shouldn't have it yet - it takes yet more time! How could I not know? But if I haven't heard by this other date, of course let them know. There's nothing they can do about it anyway, but let them know in any case. So that they can tell me to wait some more. And anyway, the cost of the insurance is about a quarter of what I'm paid.
Of course Apple is in no rush to make people permanent. In fact they seem to have the whole temp-swap process pretty well institutionalized. Although if they wanted to make me permanent it's not the sort of job I'd really want. One of the things that has kept me going is the knowledge that this thing only lasts 9 months or so - unless they extend the contract, which I think they only do once.
I feel on the verge of just giving up. Giving in. Saying: jobs suck, I have a job, my job sucks, oh well. But I know it doesn't have to be like that.
I am capable of far more than this job can offer me. I should be the boss of my bosses, not their underling/plaything. My educational...wanderings...have limited the room I'd otherwise have to move. The job market does as well. But still, even if I'm going to be stuck in a (relatively) low-paid dead-end job, can't it be one that is more personally meaningful? I don't know that I could work a soul-sucking job even if it paid a fortune - but hey, at least it'd be something. I'm pretty damned willing to work a meaningful job for a pittance, however. Right now I've got neither fortune nor meaning. Just, well...pittance.
I want to just walk out. Every morning I stand in the shower and I think, "I just should not go in. I'll not go in and instead I'll go to some other agency and find a job." And all day I think, "How did my life come to this? I had promise once, I know it. Promise for something more than....this." And all night I think, "My free time goes too quickly, and tomorrow comes too soon." Insert here: wail of despair. And on my days off, the ones that can be full of promise and productivity? I curl up into a cocoon of denial. I don't despair of my job. What job? Don't know what you're talking about. This is Friday. This is Thursday. I do not know of this "Saturday" you speak of. This "Monday." Sounds like devil-talk to me!
That is, of course, that tendency of mine, related to the aforementioned academic wanderings. What do you want to be when you grow up? Too much pressure! How about instead...I don't grow up? That'll work.
And it does, for a time.
And then you want to grow up anyway. But you've lost your way. Birds ate the trail of crumbs you've left in the woods. The wrong people have been alienated. The wrong bridges burned. And time, you find, is a tide, pulling you away from the shore of your childhood, and safety, and comfort. And me, without my SCUBA gear...
That gear, that's the sort of thing that turns a daunting sea, the deep, the drink, into a wonderland of coral and promise and life. And that's the gear you don't think you need until it's too late. And then what?
I'll tell you what: and then Apple.
So... does anyone know, please, is it relatively easy to get some other job, through some other agency? Even one that sucks... just one that doesn't suck like this?
I'd be much obliged.