Caterwauling

I’ve moved at least a dozen times in my life. At least.

I can’t remember how I used to stay up all night packing, go to work, come home and pack, and somehow have my shit together by the almighty deadline.

I never took off any days. And half my crap was unboxed when the movers got there. But somehow I taped up the last box before they started the drive to our new destination.

Now I have about four times as much shit, between mom’s and mine. And lord knows I throw away a quarter lifetime’s worth of crap with each move.

I need my sleep. And I’m old and things hurt a lot sooner. And back then I couldn’t financially afford to take a day off. Now I can’t afford to take a day off because things will be published in pseudo-Swahili without the Rosetta Stone job I try to do on incoming copy.

I’m very nervous because not only did the construction workers double-bolt my doors shut today, but they started lugging plywood onto the balcony. I asked Evil Landlady 6 if they are going to start boarding us up a week early. She said I will get a memo when it is time for me to know.

That is something I won’t miss. A snotty memo on a Friday night — shoved in your door probably long after you’ve left for a long weekend — to tell you shit is gonna happen bright and early Monday.

In fact, I still have furniture on the balcony that I didn’t get a chance to remove. Oh well. Doors are bolted. They can drop it into the Intracoastal or shove it wherever it pleases them.

Pray for me, if you’re so inclined, that if it comes down to losing my view for these final days or else losing my mind, that the view stays intact longer …

The hiring hell has begun again. This time, here’s to people actually being talented in the things they assure you they are talented in.

Here’s to me not calling someone’s alma mater out of sheer curiosity of, “No, really, you conferred them a degree? In THAT? And you were of sound mind?”

I’m planning for more vacancies than I currently have. Not that I enjoy hiring and training and seeing what happens when you’ve invested all your time and it just isn’t successful.

But at some point you have to weigh the risk-vs.reward strategy. And just like any investment, it changes from the very moment you buy the stock. No one says you have to own it till you die.

You can sell call options against it your whole life but at some point, don’t you want to take a damn break and quit having to manage it so actively?

I’ve been feeling defeated because I feel like I bet on some bad stocks. But I was just looking back at their, ah, stock certificates shall we say. The original information that came my way and persuaded me to consider investing.

And you know what? Without knowing what I know today, I would still have taken the chance.

I mean we all make promises in the hiring song-and-dance. We all think we are bright and capable and easygoing and bursting with uniqueness that will dazzle the people in charge.

At least, I think that. After I get past my paralyzing fear of, “Oh shit, I don’t know if I know enough right now. But I am sure going to bust my ass to learn what they want and learn it FAST.”

You know, if just ONE of them said to me, “Goddess, what could I do better to make your life easier / make my writing better / help your workload / learn so you don’t have to / earn my keep / get taken seriously,” I would weep tears of joy.

Instead people wander in and out, do their thing, do their thing even AFTER you tell them their thing sucks, resign themselves to flying under the radar so I don’t notice/correct them, or basically antagonize me till I forget what the fuck I even wanted from them in the first place and I’ll just do it my goddamned self to shut them the hell up.

And while I am 100% invested in sticking around to see success, it’s people like me who will just wake up one day and say, “Guess what. I am gonna take my happy, awesome, compliant, enthusiastic and pleasant ass elsewhere.”

Today is not that day.

But I can’t say I haven’t had that thought more often than not throughout my life.

So yeah. I hate hiring but I am so excited to think that this time, it will turn out right.