So. I haven’t written in a little over two weeks because
we’ve been juggling several large-scale things on the Key Route front. I’ve
been prioritizing self-care and sleep over pretty much everything else. I
haven’t seen most of my friends in this time…so don’t feel too singled out if I
haven’t touched base with you in a while.
****Career****
Over the course of two weeks I applied to three State jobs
with state versions of the EPA and other types of policy enforcement agencies.
Initially, I took the exam to be an Engineering Geologist (EG) and I was so
proud of myself because I passed with 80%. It was 49 multiple-choice questions
with multiple-choice on references provided as to who could verify my
experiences. This exam was all automated online and scored immediately. Great!
There were two positions available for an Engineering Geologist so I started applying for them.
I communicated with one of the HR people and also found out
there was an Environmental Scientist (ES) position. It was a less technical job
but also a less intense application. I then did the ES exam and passed with
85%. Then I had to MAIL the application in. Ugh. Whatever.
So I get to work on these Engineering Geologist jobs. Over
the course of the week and half I prepare the applications I find out several
distressing things.
1)
I did the wrong exam. Not a big deal;
except that it turned into a huge deal. Instead of an automatically graded
online test, I had to download the document and then mail in the test, with results to be mailed back within 4-6 weeks. I found this out on Monday. The test
had to be completed and received before I was eligible to apply for the EG
position. The deadline for the EG position was Friday.
2)
The test was 30 pages; every question required a
short written answer. 38 questions asking me to detail the level of experience
I had with every aspect of the job and in which class had I covered the
material.
3)
Once I completed the test (with HUGE credit to
my accountabilibuddy who didn’t leave my side until I was done) I had to mail the printed out document to the
State capitol. Oh, and I didn’t mention that the radio buttons didn’t work so I
had to fill them all in by hand before mailing them.
4)
The job stated that it required all of my
official transcripts. Over the course of my college career I attended five
colleges. Had to request transcripts from all of them, each request cost money.
5)
Each college transcript required me to FAX in a
permission slip saying I really authorized the request.
After each of these requirements
were met, I still had to write a two page Statement of Qualifications essay summarizing my education and
experience (similar to a Personal Statement) and how I would fit into the
position listed. While I love writing about my life, I generally hate writing
about my life in a braggadocios manner. It took me 5 months of being
unemployed before several friends pointed out that I should mention I graduated
with honors when I applied to jobs. I held an assumption throughout college
that the expectation was to get 4.0 so anything less than that was unacceptable
and shameful. I never gave myself credit for actually living up to that.
Writing those two pages were some
of the most excruciating prose I’ve done in a while. I created structure for
myself by drawing out all of the verbs from the job listing. I then played that
writing game where I included as many of the verbs as I could in the essay. I
didn’t say I have excellent communication skills, I just showed it.
Then I also had to write cover
letters for each position.
By Friday lunchtime I had
completed everything and submitted all transcripts, diplomas, cover letters,
statement of qualifications, copied my resume 4 times into
different places and hit submit. I have no idea if I even passed the qualifying
exam; and if not, the entire application was for naught! Yaaaay. .___.
Friday afternoon I went to a career
fair in green tech utilities. Around my birthday someone recommended my getting
into utilities as a stable possibility instead of starting my own business. I’m
ornery and wrote off the suggestion at the time because I was vetting my
business idea and I wanted the company to work. Three months later, I find
myself at a utilities job fair.
It was actually a cute little fair
with about 20 companies represented, about half of them Solar. Every time a
representative from a Solar company talks about “solar systems” I crack up.
They were mostly looking for sales agents and photovoltaic (PV) designers or
engineers. I did find some interesting people with some really solid advice
about how to network in this industry better.
I feel like job fairs can be
pretty misleading at times. I went by the utilities representative for Oroenpaz
City and the woman was quite cold and told me to take a pre-printed flyer. I
offered her my resume and she informed me that all of the job listings were on
the website on the pre-printed flier and good day.
I happened to swing by the same
booth later and talked with a different representative. This guy
seemed to be a middle manager that was certainly much higher up, maybe the other woman's boss? I offered him my resume and he literally
said “Wow! This is really impressive!” Now we have a follow up phone screen
next Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing if there is anywhere I can fit into
their system to contribute my expertise.
****Housing****
As the complicated application process unfolded,
another event transpired on the home front. As aquageddon has
transpired, a leak developed over our bathtub. I could see black mold peaking
out through the sagging lintel. I report it to our property managers.
The same day (2/8), I find a piece
of paper on our front door that informs us the property managers intend to tour
the property with the new owners. The entire building has been sold, private
sale.
On Friday (2/10) I came home from
the career fair and there is a note on my clothes horse from the real
estate agent of the new buyer. The note demands we fill out a form of estoppel certificate (I’m not even listed as a tenant) and respond immediately. Here is where the
date is important. The letter is dated 2/9 and demands a two day turn around. It’s
delivered on 2/10, on a Friday afternoon after the post office is closed. There
is literally no way to meet the demands of the letter. To top it off, the
letter closes with “Remember, you only get one chance to make a first
impression so make sure it’s a good one.”
In addition to trying to manage my
own feelings of fear, intimidation and anger I quickly found that my neighbors
demand emotional labor to manage their feelings. In addition to the
emotional work of assuring them that they are going to be fine, they seem to
also be less informed than PartnerPenguin and I when it comes to the legal
definitions of rent control. One of the neighbors (who considers himself the
on-site manager) is convinced that the new owner will just kick us all out with
no compensation and that we will all be homeless. That is so far from what is
legally acceptable, even if we didn’t live in a rent-controlled unit. It’s
been exhausting to even interface with that viewpoint.
PartnerPenguin and I are working
to put together a one-page summary of the pertinent laws regarding tenant
rights and post them publicly around our development. Hopefully this will give
neighbors actionable information without actually interacting with us. And
hopefully I will be able to keep the kitchen door closed so my next door
neighbor stops inviting himself in to complain while I prepare my lunch.
In the meantime, we are starting
to explore our options around the area. This is a compound stress because if I
get the job with the state I will be commuting 90 miles, one direction, unless
we move a bit north. This housing search is providing different and interesting
challenges compared to previous housing searches. I am acutely feeling the
privilege of our situation and appreciating it immensely because, for once, I
am not terrified of being outright homeless. Previously it would have taken us
3-6 months to save the necessary first, last and deposit ($4000-5000 with
current rent prices) to change homes. PartnerPenguin’s job has allowed for us
to save that amount much more easily and therefore we have it at hand, should
we need to move out tomorrow. I still hope we don’t need to, but it feels
completely different from the last two or three times I moved. To give
perspective: moving to The Lab on The Hill left both of us with $17 before my
first paycheck hit.
Oh, and another thing with
housing. Since aquageddon started we’ve had a new house-guest:
I found it on my laptop case. I’m 99% certain
it’s a termite. We’re keeping it in a glass jar until the property management
company is open again after the holiday weekend. But many things are pointing
towards GTFO’ing this complex right now.
****Job****
Applying for government jobs
creates artificially long timescales so in the interim I decided to connect with
a temp agency. I have talked at other points in time about gender presentation
in the workplace but I feel like this has dominated my thoughts for the past
week.
My most recent adventure into this
topic happened at game night about two weeks ago. A friend was wearing a very
cute outfit but the shirt cut low to about what I would consider to be about
70% cleavage. She wore an under-shirt but clearly the cleavage was intentional.
I was flabbergasted that that level of femme presentation was allowed at work.
There were time at TLoTH when I thought I was going to get written up for
“inappropriate dress” when I had been showing about 30% cleavage. I had assumed
from my lived experience that femme presentation and work were fundamentally
incompatible unless you had small enough boobs and knew enough about fashion to
utilize it without being sexual.
Going into the temp agency was a
culture shock of an experience. Women dominate this workplace and most of the
jobs are gendered. Positions seem to range from secretary to sales with a
sprinkling of event staffing. I figured some work is better than nothing so I
offered to accept whatever comes across my plate. It helps that I have a very
specific financial goal that I’m working towards so I can count how each hour
of work helps me achieve my goal. My current financial goal is to do complete
my work with Sparkles and achieve a breakthrough with her.
This week I got my first
assignment! I worked security for an info security conference. Translation: I
was a human door. I “guarded” the Speaker Lounge. Ostensibly my job was to make
sure no one but speakers entered the room. I also needed to watch two Macbooks
that weren’t locked down because Apple doesn’t believe in creating physical
locks for their products? I learned the following about myself at this post.
·
I am absolute rubbish at being intimidating. I
tried to kick people out of the room and they took their sweet time and then
came back later in the day.
·
There were a few people who were nice and genuinely
interesting. Some even gave me excellent advice about networking and different
approaches to personal branding. I asked for this advice, they didn’t just
flyby dump on me.
·
Many conference attendees do not educate
themselves with maps provided before they attend a session. The most common
conversation I had was giving directions to either the bathrooms or the other
buildings of the conference.
·
Women and people of color were the 80% of the
people who said “Thank you” to me for doing my job. However they were <15%
of the participants of the event, both demographics combined.
·
I greeted literally everyone who passed me. I
found that if I tried to avoid eye contact or just stand there silently the
time passed EVEN slower and I felt more isolated by the moment.
·
Not being allowed to use the restroom or drink
water gives me a whole new appreciation for white-collar jobs where neither of
these things are relevant.
·
In conjunction with not being able to take care
of my bodily needs, I also interacted with thousands
of people, creating the perfect storm to foment illness.
·
Finally: A lot of people don’t people don’t pay
any attention to folks in these positions and literally treat them as objects.
I have worked a lot in my life to prevent myself from total
objectification. I, like many people raised as women, were told by figures of
authority that if my gender presentation was too showy/risqué it would lead
toward my harassment and I would be at fault for inviting it. I, like
many women, struggle with how to react to catcallers and other unwanted forms
of attention.
By contrast and protest, I have decided to lean into my
femme presentation by choosing to wear a distinctly red shade of lipstick while
our President is in power. I discussed this last post if you’d like to
read more of my motivations. The combination of these decisions brought me to
look like this at my security post this week:
I was genuinely surprised how many comments and compliments
I got on my hair and makeup while at this post. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been
as surprised since I greeted literally everyone.
The one comment I really could have gone without was one speaker who left the
lounge and said as a means of departing:
“Y’know every time I see those braids I just wanna pull
‘em!”
At that moment I was a bit shocked and didn’t respond. I
asked my amazing community via Facebook whether I should report the incident. I
got a lot of really emotionally honest responses and was impressed with how
civilly my friend group disagreed with each other. (In case you haven’t read
this article about Uber, I would recommend reading that right now.) I
sent a description of the event to the temp agency without using the words
harassment or threat of violence. They responded that it was good to report it
and they were sorry it happened.
The conference distinctly lacked a code of conduct and there were so many sub-contractors that there actually wasn’t a clear path
of whom I should talk to regarding reporting the incident. One of the
non-asshole speakers from the lounge helped me identify a conference organizer
with whom I could share my concern. I found her and described the interaction
and she made a decidedly disgusted face. She asked who it was, and shared her
very different experience with the same person. She believed me though, which
was important.
Other women whom I told responded in return that several
years ago there were booths at the expo hall that boasted half-naked women to
sell their product. It seems this particular conference has a pretty entrenched
objectification problem. I guess it makes me feel better that it’s not just me?
****Good newses****
The main pieces of good news are that I have amazing friends
whom I’ve continued to see despite all this crazy nonsense. They have done so
much for me in so many ways and I continue to be grateful every day.
My people keeper thing has definitely been a major
source of brightness and prevention from my falling into the swirling drain of
depression that comes with dead end jobs. It is so much less cognitive load to
just check my calendar about whom I need to say hi to that day. From there
friends can hear about different aspects of my life that I may or may not write
about. It’s been working really well.
To close out, I present the only thing that can truly cure
you when you’re sick: MOAR COWBELL!!
And to counter a classic, here is a brand new song:
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