Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts

Thursday, July 11, 2024

July 11: "The Long Day," Call Me Crazy, Jobs

Billy Collins catalogues his day . . .

The Long Day

by: Billy Collins

In the morning I ate a banana
like a young ape
and worked on a poem called "Nocturne."

In the afternoon I opened the mail
with a short kitchen knife,
and when the dusk began to fall

I took off my clothes,
put on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo"
and soaked in a claw-footed bathtub.

I closed my eyes and thought
about the alphabet,
the letters filing out of the halls of kindergarten

to become literature.
If the British call z zed,
I wondered, why not call b bed and d dead?

And why does z, which looks like
the fastest letter, come at the very end?
unless they are all moving east

when we are facing north in our chairs.
It was then that I heard
a clap of thunder and the dog's bark,

and the claw-footed bathtub
took one step forward,
or was it backward

I had to ask
as I turned
to reach for a faraway towel.



Call me crazy, but Collins' day doesn't seem all that stressful.  Working on a poem.  Opening the mail.  Taking a bath.  Contemplating the alphabet.  Does all that constitute a long day?  Perhaps, for him.  For me, the days he describes seems like a walk in the proverbial park.

Most of my days are pretty long.  This morning, I was in my office by 7:30 a.m., tapping away at my keyboard.  I don't think I looked away from my computer until about 10:30 a.m., when I'd scheduled a meeting with someone.  The rest of morning and afternoon were taken up by busy work.  Necessary, but pretty brainless.  In the evening, I led a meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle.  Left the library around 8:30 p.m.  If you're keeping track, that's about a 13-hour day.

When I got home, I had to pack my suitcase for a weekend trip to Calumet where I'm performing.  I pretty much feel brain dead at the moment, and my life isn't going to slow down until Sunday evening, after I get back from Calumet and a quick trip to Mackinaw City.  A lot of time behind the wheel in the next 72 or so hours.

I don't always enjoy this busyness, especially when it barely allows me time to take a breath.  If I could afford it, I would love to have Collins' long day.  However, I don't think anybody would pay me $20,000 to give a poetry reading or lead a writing workshop.  (Don't laugh!  I can name at least five or six poets who command a fee that big, if not bigger.)  So, I live a fragmented life, moving from one job to another to another to another, sometimes in the space of just a few hours.

Am I tired?  Yes, I am.  Do I enjoy my various jobs?  For the most part, yes, I do.  Would I like to have fewer jobs?  Yes, I would.

But this is all I know.  I can't remember any point in my life (besides high school) when I wasn't holding down at least two occupations.  Currently, I have one full-time job and six part-time jobs.  Yes, six.  Don't feel bad for me, though.  Lots of people do the same thing in order to pay the bills.  I'm not the exception.

I'm just weary tonight, that's all.  It has been a long week, and it's going to be an even longer weekend.

Saint Marty is a little tired in his bones.

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

March 29: Tireder than I Have Ever Been, Jobs, Jeff Bezos

Santiago is tired . . .  

"I have no cramps," he said. "He'll be up soon and I can last. You have to last. Don't even speak of it."

He kneeled against the bow and, for a moment, slipped the line over his back again. I'll rest now while he goes out on the circle and then stand up and work on him when he comes in, he decided.

It was a great temptation to rest in the bow and let the fish make one circle by himself without recovering any line. But when the strain showed the fish had turned to come toward the boat, the old man rose to his feet and started the pivoting and the weaving pulling that brought in all the line he gained. 

I'm tireder than I have ever been, he thought, and now the trade wind is rising. But that will be good to take him in with. I need that badly.

I am tired.  I'm not sure if I'm tireder than I have ever been, but I'm pretty damn tired.

I've been reflecting a lot on the life I've led, career-wise.  I've held a lot of jobs.  Aside from summer work I did during my undergraduate and graduate school years, I've stuck with the jobs that I've had for a long time.  I worked as a part-time bookseller for close to five or so years.  I was part of the healthcare industry for over 25 years (20 for an outpatient surgery center, five for a cardiology office).  I've been a contingent English professor going on 30 years.  And I have been a church organist since I was 18 years old.  (Not going to say how many years that is--but it's a LONG time.)

I still hold down about four jobs in order to pay my bills.  Barely.  And that is my point today.  In a country that is supposed to be the wealthiest in the world--where, supposedly, hard work is rewarded--people shouldn't have to work four jobs in order to survive.  There's something obscenely wrong about that.

Those of you who know me personally would never call me lazy, I think.  Granted, I chose to study English and poetry.  However, I have been working consistently for the same university, year-after-year, for three decades, and I am still considered part-time with no possibility of full-time employment.  On top of that, I work full-time for a public library.  I write $20,000 grants.  I teach community poetry workshops.  And I clean churches in the evening, after I've hosted concerts and readings for the library.

Just typing all that makes me tired.  

Yet, there are billionaires in this country who pay less in taxes than I do.  This is because our country is run by rich, privileged millionaires who have never pushed a broom or cleaned a toilet or flipped a burger their whole lives.  I'm not a big fan of politics or politicians.  Democrat or Republican.  Anyone who gets paid upwards of $200,000, with really great, cheap medical insurance, shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about minimum wage and healthcare and welfare.  

There shouldn't be homeless people in our country.  Or starving people.  Or people dying because they can't get proper healthcare.  There shouldn't be billionaires.  No single person should have more money than a third-world country.  According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States.  Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, estimates the cost of ending hunger in the United States to be $25 billion.  Jeff Bezos' net worth is $184.5 billion.  That means that Jeff could end homelessness and hunger in the United States and still be worth $139.5 billion.

Think about that when you are dragging yourself home from work with swollen feet and an aching back.

Okay, Saint Marty is putting away his angry eyes now.

And a Lenten poem for today . . .

Lazarus Speaks

by:  Martin Achatz

I heard His voice in that cold place,
Calling me from darkness to light.
I left my bed of stone, stepped back
To sun and hunger and need. My sisters,
Martha, Mary, their need for me,
Strong as ten thousand hippo-lionesses
Of Egypt, pregnant with pyramids,
Returned me to flesh and muscle,
Blood, dates, bread still warm
From the fire in a bowl of bone.
They fill me with want,
Have made me thirsty and tired again,
Cold at night, under moon, stars.
Neighbors avoid me like the leper, afraid
Of stories I may tell of endless dark,
The taste of death in my mouth
Like unclean meat. But I have nothing
To tell them. No conversations
With Moses, Elijah. No valleys
With souls piled like grain
On the threshing floor. I have
The itch of sand in my hair
The ache in my loins for woman.
The constant call of my body for
The meat of lamb, cool wine, water.
And the work of breath, in, out, in, out.
I would trade it all for one more minute
In that cave, away from the urge
To lift my face and hands and voice,
To hope, to sing a psalm of human
Longing to the blue and empty heavens.



Saturday, September 7, 2019

September 7: Being a Cop, Passions, Secret to a Happy Life,

Zaphod and crew have a run-in with some interstellar cops in the middle of an identity crises . . .

Near them on the floor lay several rather ugly men who had been hit about the head with some heavy design awards.

Half a mile away, four figures pounded up a corridor looking for a way out.  They emerged into a wide open-plan computer bay.  They glanced about wildly.

"Which way you reckon, Zaphod?" said Ford.

"At a wild guess, I'd say down here," said Zaphod, running off down to the right between a computer bank and the wall.  As the others started after him he was brought up short by a Kill-O-Zap energy bolt that cracked through the air inches in front of him and fried a small section of adjacent wall.

A voice on a bullhorn said, "Okay, Beeblebrox, hold it right there.  We've got you covered."

"Cops!" hissed Zaphod, and spun around in a crouch.  "You want to try a guess at all, Ford?"

"Okay, this way," said Ford, and the four of them ran down a gangway between two computer banks.

At the end of the gangway appeared a heavily armored and space-suited figure waving a vicious Kill-O-Zap gun.

"We don't want to shoot you, Beeblebrox!" shouted the figure.

"Suits me fine!" shouted Zaphod back, and dived down a wide gap between two data process units.

The others swerved in behind him.

"There are two of them," said Trillian.  "We're cornered."

They squeezed themselves down in an angle between a large computer data bank and the wall.

They held their breath and waited.

Suddenly the air exploded with energy bolts as both the cops opened fire on them simultaneously.

"Hey, they're shooting at us," said Arthur, crouching in a tight ball.  "I though they said they didn't want to do that."

"Yeah, I thought they said that," agreed Ford.

Zaphod stuck a head up for a dangerous moment.

"Hey," he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!" and ducked again.

They waited.

After a moment a voice replied, "It isn't easy being a cop!"

It isn't easy being anything.  I'm sure a nurse would say that it isn't easy being a nurse.  A college student would say it isn't easy being a college student.  Ditto a heart surgeon.  Ditto the school custodian.  In my working life, I've learned that most people think their jobs are the most important and most difficult.  Doesn't matter the job.

For example, I could say that it isn't easy being a contingent college professor.  No health benefits.  Working semester-to-semester with no guarantees of re-employment every four months, and the full-time faculty get paid twice (sometimes three) times as much as you for teaching the same class.

Or I could say that it isn't easy being a church organist.  The compensation for all the hours spent planning, practicing, and playing is minuscule.  And, come Christmas or Easter--the high holidays--the stress and demands triples or quadruples.  Plus, you have to work EVERY weekend, sometimes playing two or three services. 

Every person in every occupation has similar tales.  The truth of the matter is that a job is a job.  It can be stressful or stress-free, tiring or energizing, sad-ful or joyful.  A job is what you make of it.  A person who works at McDonald's can take just as much pride in his labors as a brain surgeon.  That's the simple truth.

I'm lucky, in a way.  I get to do what I love--teach writing and literature and film.  I don't do it full-time (which would be my dream job), but I still get to do it.  I love being in a classroom full of young minds.  Love feeling the weird, funky energy they impart.  I can honestly say that teaching is what I was meant to do with my life.

I would say that most people stumble through their lives, never really knowing what their purposes are.  They never find that one thing that fulfills them.  It's not about money or fame.  It's about passion.  Most people I encounter have no idea what their passions are. 

Me?  I'm passionate about poetry and writing and movies and books.  My mother was passionate about quilting.  She loved it.  My father was literally passionate about plumbing.  He truly loved what he did.  He kept the tools of his trade in his trucks up until the time he couldn't drive anymore.  I think the people who are most unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives are the ones who have no idea what they're passionate about.

When you don't know what puts a fire in your belly, then you turn to other, unhealthy preoccupations.  Addictions even.  Because the addiction fills that void.  Temporarily.  But pretty soon the drug wears off, alcohol transitions to hangover, sexual partner of the day goes away.  What's left?  The same emptiness that you were looking to fill.  So it's more drugs or more alcohol or another sexual partner.  It's a pretty vicious circle.

I count myself lucky.  I know my passions.  And, because I know them, I'm a better person.  That is the real secret to a happy life.

This message has been brought to you by Saint Marty.  Husband.  Father.  Brother.  Poet.  Teacher.  Organist.  Blogger.  Thinker.  Friend.


Monday, March 24, 2014

March 24: Jobs, a Call, a "Web" Dip

As I've said in previous posts, I don't deal well with uncertainty.  I like knowing what to expect.  That's why I make detailed birthday and Christmas lists (with sizes, colors, shapes, editions, prices, and vendors clearly enumerated).  I don't want to risk the possibility of an ugly tie.

This morning, I received a phone call from one of the places where I interviewed last week.  The manager wanted me to spell out my availabilities in the afternoons again.  I think he's trying to work out a schedule that would allow me to work and teach.  That sounds very promising.  I have not heard from the other place I interviewed, which perturbs me.  I really don't want to make a decision until all the cards are on the table, so to speak.

I am happy that I'm at least getting interest in my applications.  I have to keep reminding myself that I'm a good employee.  My displacement has nothing to do with my job performance.  It's just a simple matter of policy changes and departmental adjustments.  I shouldn't be taking it personally.  It's business.  But, after you give close to 20 years of your life to a place, it feels very personal.

My question for E. B. White is straightforward this evening:

Am I going to enjoy whatever job I end up getting?

And the answer from the gospel according to Charlotte is:

...And then [Lurvy] took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down.  There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message.  It said:

SOME PIG!

Well, that's a pretty clear answer.  It's Charlotte's first message, and Lurvy is dumbfounded.  That means some kind of miracle is headed my way.  I don't need anything on the scale of a tenured university position falling out of the sky into my lap (although, that would be nice).  No, I'll take something small, like a spider web glistening with dew in early morning sunlight.

And tenure.

Saint Marty isn't picky.

Pick a street, any street

Monday, March 10, 2014

March 10: Motivation Drought, Jobs, "Web" Dip

Every day I work at the medical office, I find myself struggling for motivation.  I show up with the best of intentions to accomplish a great deal, but, pretty soon, I fall into a line of thinking that goes something like this:
  • You are a good employee.
  • It really doesn't matter whether I'm a good employee or not.
  • People are counting on you to do your work.
  • But those people are taking your job away from you and making your life a little hellish.
  •  I can't feel proud of my work because it just doesn't matter.
  • Is it lunchtime yet?
It's a motivation drought.  I've been experiencing it for the last couple weeks.  I don't feel like doing anything, especially hunting for a new job.  The very thought of it makes me tired.  I can't convince myself that this is some kind of wonderful opportunity to stretch my limits and try new things.  I'm even struggling to string sentences together for this post.

Perhaps this bout of ennui has something to do with daylight savings time and the fact that I lost an hour of sleep last weekend.  Or it could have to do with the fact that it feels like my life is slowly being dismantled, one occupation at a time.

I'm going to do a Web dip, but I'm not sure that E. B. White has the solution to my problem:

Am I going to start feeling more motivated soon?

And the answer from White and company is:

After lunch, they stretched out and fell asleep.

OK, that sounds like a great idea, but it certainly doesn't inspire me to greater heights, loftier goals.


It inspires Saint Marty to take a nap.

Mmmmm-hmmmmm

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

December 3: Too Damn Tired, Worry Everywhere, Jobs

I nodded, because he was looking right at me and all, but I wasn't sure what he was talking about.  I was pretty sure I knew, but I wasn't too positive at the time.  I was too damn tired.

Holden is really tired.  He's practically asleep on his feet.  Mr. Antolini, his former teacher, is trying to talk some common sense into him in the above quote.  Holden doesn't give a crap about common sense.  He just wants to go to bed.

It's been quite a day, and I'm as tired as Holden right now.  When I got to the medical office this morning, I found out the health care organization for which I work had executed another round of arbitrary terminations.  People who have been loyal and hardworking employees for a very long time, 20 and 30 years in some cases.  Gone.  "Early retirement" for one person.  Escorted off the hospital grounds by security guards for another.

It cast a pall over the entire day.  Nobody feels safe or secure in the positions, least of all me.  Nurses and surgical techs, they have important skills.  Hard-to-replace skills.  Me?  I'm just a lowly medical records clerk.  That's my official title.  I'm probably the most replaceable person in the office.  It's always reassuring to be so . . . not needed.

There was worry everywhere today, from my coworkers and boss.  Call us the expendables.  On Thursday morning, we expendables are invited to attend a meeting at the hospital where the remaining leadership is going to try to convince us how lucky we are.  The only exciting prospect of the meeting is the free breakfast being provided.  It's always customary to provide a last meal for the condemned, I suppose.

I am grateful for my jobs, even if they don't pay all my bills.  I have jobs.  I'm a lot luckier than a whole bunch of other people I know.

Saint Marty simply wishes he felt grateful this evening.  He doesn't.  He feels as if at any moment the ground might split open and swallow him up.

I know how he feels

Thursday, November 14, 2013

November 14: Something Else, Jobs, Piece of Mind

"Stop swearing.  All right, name something else.  Name something you'd like to be.  Like a scientist.  Or a lawyer or something."

Phoebe's trying to force Holden to think about growing up.  She wants him to name something he wants to be when he grows up.  It's a question everyone has to answer eventually.  Kids have pretty standard responses to it:  a police officer, a firefighter, the President of the United States, the Headmaster at Hogwarts.  When you're young, anything seems possible.

When I was Holden's age, I wanted to be a writer.  Now that I'm (censored) years old, I still want to be a writer.  It's been my life-long dream.  I want to go to a library or bookstore and see my books on the shelves.  I want people to read and care about what I say.  That's why I write this blog.  To connect through language with people I don't know, to find what's universal in me and my life.

Of course, I am a published poet.  I have written/published a book.  I'm the senior poetry editor at a prestigious literary magazine.  In some ways, I've accomplished my life goal.  I am a writer.

However, I'm also a part-time medical records clerk, church organist, and college professor.  When I dreamed about being a writer as a ten-year-old, I didn't envision any of these other jobs.  I was going to be William Faulkner (without the alcoholism) or Robert Frost (without the chickens) or Stephen King (without the bad beard and haircut).


It turns out all of those guys did have other jobs.  Frost and King were school teachers.  Faulkner tried his hand at being a postmaster.  That's reality.  That's the difference between having a dream and accomplishing that dream.  You have to read the dream fine print, and it goes something like this:

You may have to work two or three or four other jobs, all with shitty salaries.  You may also alienate your wife and kids, miss family get-togethers.  Out of all the stories or poems or novels you write, only one or two will actually be published.  If you're lucky.  Or you may never get a single word in print, and you will die a frustrated, bitter person.

That pretty much sums up the whole job description for a writer.  Part-time work, low wages, and zero recognition.  I could never resist such an irresistible job description.

And that's a piece of Saint Marty's mind.

 
This guy's working on his first novel

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

April 3: Trying to Remain Positive, Thoughts About Jobs

I've been thinking a lot today about writing and publishing and teaching and trying to remain positive.

It really seems that the only way people get hired at the English Department full-time is if they have tons of publications (or at least one or two really impressive ones).  Most of my non-academic friends don't understand that it's not just a matter of submitting a cover letter and vita and landing an interview.  There're phone interviews.  There're portfolios.  There're campus visits with presentations and classroom teaching demonstrations.  Plus, there's always three or four other candidates with more impressive vitas than yours.

My good friend who was just hired this year by the university has four books under his belt.  He just had his fifth book published last fall.  Really impressive.  Also really depressing.  I wouldn't stand a chance against a guy like him.

However, I'm trying to remain positive.  About writing.  About publishing.  About jobs.  I've got my new book of poems submitted to another contest at the moment.  I'm just waiting for the rejection letter/e-mail to come my way.  (For some reason, receiving a rejection by e-mail is the most esteem-crushing experience I've had.  It says to me that I'm not even worth the cost of a first class postage stamp.)  I still might win.  I might.  There's always a chance.

Saint Marty is trying to remain positive.

Right now, it's perish for me.