Bang Bang Bang

I don't like guns. I'm not a "guns should be banned" kind of person (though I do think some laws need to be changed or at least enforced), but guns aren't for me. 

I think a lot of people have a power fantasy. Guns give you the ultimate power over life and death. You can use them to save lives or to end them. I don't want power. I don't want that kind of responsibility. I don't want the ability to decide who lives or dies. I just don't want to be that important.

But I do see the logic of owning a gun for emergencies. I don't have one yet, but I might get one soon. So when my work offered a free gun course, I signed up.

Yesterday I fired a gun for the first time in my life. We spent a full day of learning first, watching powerpoint presentations and videos, practicing with fake ammo, and taking a written test. After about 7 hours in the classroom, we went to the firing range.

I was so nervous. I hated holding such a powerful device in my hand. I'm such a clumsy person. With the way the room was set up, the chances of me accidentally shooting a classmate were pretty slim, which made me feel a little better. But I'm such a butterfingers, anything is possible.

Plus I've had a really bad year. I was never actively suicidal, but intrusive thoughts do happen. If I'd owned a gun during the past year, I might not be here now. I wasn't looking for ways to hurt myself, but at my lowest points, I could have seen it as an easy way out.

Things are better now. I've healed a lot. But it still feels "weird" holding a device in my hand that could end all my grief. A split second decision is all it would take. Don't worry, I would never actually do that. And once I was on the range, I was more concerned with keeping all my fingers and thumbs in the right place to entertain those thoughts.

Anyway, I did pretty well. I had the most accurate score in my class, though there only three of us. Beginner's luck? Maybe it was a childhood of playing video games. Or maybe it was just the toy guns I had as a kid - they were more realistic back in those days, and I remember I used to practice lining up the front and back sights.

 

My Target

I wish everyone had to take a class like this to get a gun. There are too many irresponsible gun owners out there, and they make all gun owners look bad. I'm not going to get preachy about it today, but overall there are a lot of things that need to change.

Bottom line? I can see the appeal, but I'm still not a gun person. If I get one, it will be kept in a safe, only removed if I hear someone breaking into my house. But I don't plan to take it to the range for fun. It's just not my cup of tea.

Wish Me Luck

So, I finally got a job, it starts tomorrow morning. 

It all happened pretty fast. I'm subscribed to several job sites. On Tuesday morning I checked my email and applied to three jobs they suggested. An hour later I got a phone call from one of them, asking me to come in for an interview, which happened an hour after the call. They liked me at the interview, and asked me if I could start Thursday.

It's for the front desk at an apartment complex, where I will collect rent checks and help new tenants sign paperwork. The pay is decent for the area and benefits are included. My only gripe so far is the commute - it's not far, but there's lots of construction.

Anyway, wish me luck. It sounds like a great job; I'll let you know how it goes.

Unemployed Again

Short and sweet: 

The new job didn't work out. It was just too complicated for my grieving, 52-year-old brain. Plus it involved interacting with emergency services, which gives me PTSD for the night I had to call 911 for my wife.

I have several applications out there, and an interview on Tuesday. Don't worry about me, I have plenty of money to live on for a while.

In other news, I'm wearing glasses again, 20 years after getting Lasik. Once I have a steady job, maybe I'll save up for Lasik again.

 

I'd Rather Be Writing

I'm starting a new job on Sunday. I'm kind of disappointed in myself because I just can't work up the energy to do much. I went to see a movie today, just to get out of the house. Yesterday I played lots of video games, which, believe it or not, is actually progress. It's better than watching YouTube all day, anyway.

Still, I wish I was writing. I haven't properly written since I moved here. There's always an excuse. January through April, I couldn't write because I felt guilty for not having a job yet. April through June, I was grieving. July through August, my new job was taking too much energy out of me.

But I quit that job when I got hired for this new one, and I had a full week off in between. I wanted to write, but I'm too nervous about my new job. Once I start the new job, I'll still find reasons not to write.

The truth is, I was very lucky with my old job, the one I had before I moved. I was fortunate enough to have a job that had a lot of downtime. I wrote most of my books while at work. It's when my brain is most alert, and I have the right combination of chemicals floating around for productivity. Unfortunately my new job isn't going to give me any time for writing.

Maybe if I put aside specific writing hours on my days off, even going as far as to wear work clothes, I could get past my mental blocks and actually write something. I do have ideas. There's all sorts of stories floating around my brain, waiting to be written down.

I'm getting lonely. My D&D group isn't going to meet again for a while, because my new job will have me working most weekends. Maybe I'll make some friends at my new job, though I know I'll only be working with one person most of the time.

This house is too big and empty without KJ. I keep thinking about getting a roommate, and not just for the extra money. I'm on a message board for local LGBT+ people, and sometimes people post about needing a place to stay. Usually it's transgender young adults still living with their abusive parents. I'm always tempted to offer them a room.

But I doubt I ever will. First off, it feels skeevy somehow, as a 52-year-old, to offer a room to people in their 20s. I'd be doing it with the best of intentions, but I'm afraid someone would accuse me of being a sexual deviant. Secondly, I'm afraid of someone disappearing in the middle of the night with some of my stuff. But most of all, I just have a general fear of... whadoyoucallem... human beings.

I don't know. I love this house, but I'd love it more if I could share it.

Learning Curve

Yesterday was the third month anniversary of my wife's death. I've come along way, healing-wise, but I'm still in a lot of pain. Still, I've got a new job, made some new friends, and life is going on.

I have a love/hate relationship with my job. I love the company. I love the benefits. I love the office. I love the location. I love my coworkers. I love my cubicle.

The job itself? Hmm. It's a lot of phone customer service, and I'm okay with that. The problem is, there's a lot to learn. I tend to learn through repetition, but no two calls are ever the same. Each time someone calls, I have to pull up a different piece of software and go through a different set of steps.

Last week I sat with my trainer and watched him work. This week he sat with me and watched me work. Starting Monday I'll be sitting by myself.

This past week, I had to put customers on hold a lot while I asked my trainer questions. The problem is, half the calls I get are unique. So if a situation didn't come up in the past two weeks, I'll have no idea what to do when I get that kind of call next week. Of course there will be people to ask, but I don't like putting customers on hold for long periods of time while I track down the answer.

So far, while I'm sitting there at my desk, the job doesn't seem so bad. The calls are infrequent - sometimes I go more than fifteen minutes without my phone ringing. Most of the customers have been pleasant so far.

But my stress levels are through the roof at all other times. I have trouble sleeping at night. When I get up in the morning, I feel like I'm going to throw up. My left eyelid's been twitching, and I get frequent heartburn. Every morning I think about calling them and saying, "Sorry, this job isn't for me." Every lunch break I consider driving home and not coming back.

It will get better as I learn more about my job. Every call brings new knowledge, and eventually I won't be nervous at all. I just have to stick it out.

But I'm also having problems learning new things. Maybe it's because I'm in my 50s, or maybe it's because I'm still in mourning, but it's taking a lot longer for new knowledge to sink in. I used to pick things up so quickly, but now it's like my brain is granite, and I'm trying to carve new information in with a chisel made of Nerf.

Twice this week I've been on a phone with a customer, when they said something that somehow brought me back to the 911 call three months ago. When it happened, I completely blanked out and forgot what the customer needed. There've been a few other triggers as well. I don't know if that'll ever go away.

And I'm disgusted with myself, and my first-world problems. I'm so lucky to have found such a perfect job, and I'm complaining because I'm not good at it yet. Everyone there keeps telling me I'm doing fine, and that everybody takes a long time to learn this job. They even have a chat channel where employees who've been there for years still ask for advice on how to help their customers.

But I hate sucking at things. I want a job that I'm instantly good at. I hate asking for help. I find it embarrassing.

I keep telling myself to just give it time. And I will. I promise I won't just quit on a whim. But will I ever feel knowledgeable enough to be comfortable there?

We'll just have to see how it goes.

Time Enough At Last

My job is something else right now. And by “something else,” I mean, something besides a job. If you’re not caught up, I’m losing my job at the end of the year because they’re eliminating my position. However, I don’t think they planned it out as well as they could have, because my position technically went away as of the beginning of November. I still have a few duties, but if I took everything I currently do in a day and did it all at once, I’d be done in about an hour.

So yeah, the majority of my day right now is keeping my seat warm. It’s good work if you can get it; too bad it comes with a time limit.

I’m not being lazy – I’m perfectly happy to help out my coworkers. The problem is, almost anything they could teach me at this point would take a few months to learn, and I won’t be there that long. Plus, they just don’t have the time to cross-train me right now. It’s not a good investment of their time to train someone who’s headed out the door.

One of my current duties can’t be started until around 7 PM, but the rest of the office leaves around 4:30. So I’m alone in the building for about three hours every night.

I’m getting a lot of writing done. I have three books that are in the editing/proofreading phase, and I’m moving right along on getting them polished up. I hope I can publish at least one of them before my time runs out, because who knows how much time I’ll have once I find a new job.

Back to the Office

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  After working from home for a year and a half, I'm finally back in the office.  Currently I'm alternating at-home weeks with weeks in the office, but I'm sure full time at the office is only a few months away.  It wasn't until I started working in the office again that I really started to realize how superior it was to work from home.

I think my biggest complaint is their reasons for wanting us back in the office.  We were doing just fine at home.  There's very little that needs to be done in person.  But it came down to two things.  Some customers mentioned that they could hear noises in the background when they called us, such as television, children, and dogs.  The other issue is they just "wanted to see more faces in the office" which sounds like a sweet "we miss you", but actually means they want to be able to watch us and make sure we're really working.

Here's some of the advantages I enjoyed working from home:

Saves gas and time.  I lose almost an hour a day driving to and from work.  That's more than 300 hours a year that would be better spent watching TV.  And now I have to start budgeting for gas again, in a year when the price of almost everything went up.

Fewer distractions.  YMMV on this one, but I personally work more efficiently at home.  I know some coworkers probably get caught up on Facebook and who-knows-what-else when they aren't being supervised, but that hasn't been a problem for me.  I don't even keep the TV on in the room I work in.  I'm not saying I've never glanced at the internet while working from home, but the point is, I can schedule those distractions for when work is slow.  But when I'm in the office, I'm constantly overhearing other people's conversations and phone calls, making it difficult to concentrate on my own work.  I sit near one of the doors to my area, and just the sound of the door opening and closing every few minutes drives me crazy.

Dress code/Decorum.  To be fair, my work doesn't have a very strict dress code.  But I still work faster when I'm comfortable, and I'm more comfortable when I can dress the way I want.  At home, I could even wear a skirt if I wanted.  Plus I save money by putting off haircuts longer.  I can also belch if I want, and I save money on deodorant.

Better equipment. My work mouse and keyboard suck.  But they are functional, so I can't really put in an IT ticket just because I don't like the style.  I suppose I could bring in a mouse/keyboard from home, but I don't want to carry them back and forth, and I don't want to spend my own money on office equipment.  Also, there's an issue with the phone where they can't have my phone software installed on both computers at the same time.  I actually to have to forward phone calls to my cell phone while I'm in the office, because the software is currently tied to my home computer.

Safety.  There is still a pandemic going on.  Sure, I'm vaccinated, and our office has taken a lot of safety precautions.  But given that there's no pressing need for us to be in the office, it sure would be safer to just keep us home until there's fewer daily COVID deaths.

But that's not to say working from home is 100% perfect.  Here's some of the advantages of working in the office:

Physical duties.  99% of my duties can be done from home easily.  But there's still a couple of things that can only be done in person.  We're talking less than 10 minutes of my average workday, but I still feel guilty that someone else has been having to do these duties.

Smells better.  My desk at home is right next to a litter box.  I try to keep it clean, but the office still smells much better.  

Easier training.  I'm not currently in training, nor am I currently training anyone else.  But our office loves cross training, so sooner or later I will have to train with someone.  This is very difficult when you're not in person.

No connection problems.  In the past 18 months, there were maybe three days when my internet went down for a couple of hours.  At least one day the power went out.  There were also a couple of days where the internet was just plain slow.  We almost never have these problems at work.

Using company resources.  As long as I'm in the office, I'm spending less on pens, water, toilet paper, electricity, and so on.  But it probably doesn't offset spending more on gas.

Health/Exercise/Hygiene.  I haven't left the house much in the past year, and I wouldn't be surprised if I put on a couple of pounds.  It couldn't hurt to get a bit of sun now and then too.

Vehicle health.  I didn't drive much in the past year, and atrophy can be bad for a car.  The money I saved on gas could very well get spent on repairs if I'm not careful.

Better equipment.  I know I complained about my work mouse and keyboard, but I do like my monitor setup better at work.  I don't strictly need two monitors for what I do, but it does make certain tasks easier.

Errands.  I pass right by Walgreens on the way to work, so I'm already in the area if I need to pick up a prescription.  We're also less likely to waste money having fast food or groceries delivered if I'm already out.  

Bottom line:  I know I listed more individual things as advantages of working at the office, but the few advantages of working from home outweigh them.  The fact is, working from home is cheaper, more efficient, safer, more comfortable, and better for the world as a whole.