I'm back. Back at my old job. And apparently, back to being lazy about creative endeavors. I keep thinking that at least on the weekend, I will get back to this blog, but then the weekend comes, friends come over, you go out, you spend a day cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, paying bills. And then you're back on the couch. Back to watching movies or reruns of Monk.
I have always had a tendency toward sloth. Don't get me wrong--my house is generally pretty clean. I enjoy going out and having fun. But if my boyfriend suggests we sit down and watch 6 episodes of Arrested Development at one time, I am all over that couch like white on rice. You don't have to twist this girl's arm to laze about on a chilly Sunday afternoon...even when she had plans to spend some time writing her sadly neglected blog. Somehow, I was not like this when I was unemployed. That girl had things to do--and she did them! She only sat on the couch when she was folding laundry. But this girl who has a job....she likes tv.
So here is a brief update on what's been up in the past couple weeks: We were invited back to our jobs to keep things going while the sale of our assets goes through--that will happen this Friday. It's weird to be back, but honestly, I've been pretty happy--it's been a lovely, manageable amount of work. We've all been getting out of here at 5:30 every day--and this is NOT how it normally is. I have been happily ignoring the fact that there is basically a giant dump truck loaded up with poo that is poised over our heads and will unload in about a week or two--if we still have jobs. The back gate of that truck will open and we will likely have to slog through a big crapload of work with too few resources. Unless something miraculous happens...like I get another job....or it turns out that the new owners understand that we are humans and not robots...or the earth opens up and swallows us.
It's been interesting to see this whole process up close. I've been tasked with contacting our vendors to see if they want to continue to work with us. It's kind of an odd position to be in because we can't pay them for anything that we owed them for prior to the bankruptcy. So it's a little like, "Hi, it's Mel! Would you like to continue to do business with us even though we owed you thousands of dollars that you will probably never see?" The surprising thing is, almost all of them are not only willing to still deal with us, they were actually very cool and understanding. Many of them are people we've been working with for years. It's encouraging to hear them tell us we're partners that they want to continue to do business with and they're rooting for us. Just as it was amazing to have all the support from friends and acquaintances when I lost my job, now it is surprising and wonderful to hear that we have the support of these vendors. I feel fortunate to be able to receive all of these comments first-hand. It reminds me that there might be hope and I might not be insane for considering staying here.
I am still looking for a new job, but that search has lost some of its urgency since coming back here. I had an interview someplace and a phone screen someplace else. I did not get offered the jobs, but it felt good to have someone be interested in me. The interviews went really well so I was thrilled to at least get that experience under my belt since it had been quite a while. And with my anxiety, I was pretty certain that I might puke or pass out or run away or just generally embarrass myself to the point of mortification. But I smiled across the table at the 3-person panel (and 3 on the phone!) and answered the questions they fired at me for a solid hour with some sense of confidence that I'd dredged up from someplace I had forgotten existed. So at least there's that.
And now here I sit, on my lunch hour, trying to grab back onto some of that creative momentum that I was cultivating when I was unemployed. We'll see what happens in the next few days. Come Tuesday, I might have a job. I might not. I'm not too worried about it either way. Spring and summer unemployment would have its advantages. I wouldn't mind getting to know that girl who doesn't watch tv a little better.
