2:19 pm - Mon 8/9/04
Esprit De Corpse

Mon 8/9/04 (1:07 p.m.)

It's already "Thursday" in my world.

After a rough patch when I got back from vacation, the work weeks are going by quickly once again. And in a way, I'm happy about that�who wants time to drag, after all?�but it also makes me feel a little panicky, like time is going by too quickly, getting away from me. I'm starting to be afraid I'm going to look back, and I'll have ten years or fifteen years of L.A. behind me, and nothing to show for it (That's assuming I can continue to survive out here, the way things are going).

On Saturday, three people didn't show up for their closing shift at work (And of the three, only one even bothered to call).

They told Daniel, who typically works up in music, that they would have to juggle things around, and he'd need to work in the caf�. But Daniel, who has proven in the past to be even more anti-food service work than I am, flat out refused, so they sent him home for "insubordination" (Which seemed like the textbook definition of "cutting off your nose to spite your face", in light of the fact that we were already three people short).

So anyway, Yours Truly ended up in the caf�, much to my chagrin (Much as I admired Daniel's heroic stand, I can't afford to start pissing off management at this point; I need the job, and I need them to continue to be on my side with the acting stuff).

They'd put up a sign saying we could only do coffee and soda, and it was very slow, so in terms of actual "work", there wasn't much to it. It was more boring than anything else. But I still found myself depressed and upset afterwards.

I know in the past people reading this haven't really "gotten" what my problem is about this stuff. But for me, it's like...well, imagine your boss grabbing you in the middle of the work day, saying "The janitor didn't show up, so could you spend the rest of the day sweeping the floors and cleaning toilets?".

I'm guessing that unless you have a particularly strong feeling of esprit de corps where you work, that you might object . At the very least, you'd feel a tad diminished.

Or maybe you wouldn't.

But I do.

I thought about it afterwards, and that sense of being diminished comes, once again, from attaching my sense of self-worth to the store. Which I sort of already said I wasn't going to do, didn't I? But I think I also said it's hard not to attach your self-esteem to where you work, when you're there seven or eight hours a day, five days a week.

As long as I'm still trying to get my self-esteem from work, it was nice when Phil, the training supervisor, said that John A. told him to he wasn't happy with a lot of employee's "customer service skills", but I was on the short list of people who didn't need to be "re-trained".

I think the feeling I have of being "trapped" comes from feeling like there's no where I could readily go from here that wouldn't be much the same (And in defense of Borders, I continue to be a fan of my coworkers, of the $30 a month book credit, of free cd promos, etc). I can't think of anything, beyond acting, that I have any interest in doing, and I have no real job skills besides (And I can't see taking a couple years off from trying to be an actor while I learn skills in something I don't want to do anyway).

But I'm obviously going to have to get more creative here. And find ways to hit the acting thing more seriously, more like it's my actual career path, and not just a fairly unsatisfying hobby.

There must be ways to earn extra money that I'm not considering (Beyond becoming a male prostitute or a crack dealer, since neither option seems really feasible at this stage of my game).

But right now, it's off to Borders.

previous - next