Back to Work

Hey everyone, want to give a shot at where I've been this past Monday, Friday, and Thursday?

If you guessed "at a warehouse that distributes large containers of lubricant" congratulations! That is where I have been.

I've recently reconciled myself to the reality that I cannot sustain my way of living based purely on Direct Support Work. Therefor, I have hit up the temp agencies for the first time in two years.

Even if it's a different direction from what I've been doing, I don't want to give this recent gig a bad review.

When I came in, the office lady gave me a tour, told me the history of the company, which impressed me because she put forth a bit of extra effort to familiarize me with the place even though it wasn't task related. Tiny crew. I swear I worked with only two other people. There's one guy I saw around who was doing his own thing. Then there's a supervisor and two people in the office.

 Got to learn how to use a blowtorch. That's something that seemed really intimidating, but turns out, it's about as scary as lighting a candle. I also learned how to grind characters into metal plates. Again, seemed intimidating, but it's about as scary as writing with a pen that vibrates.

Job I had, I was vacuuming out containers (cubets), wiping them down, labeling them, putting them in cages, putting plugs into holes on the cages, and wrapping them in plastic wrap.

When describing my job to my neighbour, she noted that all I was talking about was lube, plugging holes, and vibrating pens.

But even though this was one of the best manufacturing positions I've ever been a part of, I still wanted to whine and moan.

Before resorting to temp work, I decided to try applying for any position on charityvillage.com, which is basically the Job Bank for social workers. Unfortunately, every single position required a full driver's license. After this, I tried applying at every group home, which is known to be the basic entry-level position to the developmental services, even though my old crowd refers to them as belonging to the "Old Story". I got three callbacks, but each of them rejected me based on the driver's license thing.

So now the tenuous plan is to get ongoing industrial work, hold onto at least three of my current Direct Support contracts, apply for University, and if successful, take another three year vacation doing post secondary education, pretending like I won't have to go back to factories.

Not going to lie, where I'm going right now is exactly everything I've fought to avoid. I have to give up all my daytime contracts in favour of industrial work. And I don't even know if I'm going to get ongoing work yet. So I'm gambling on my nightmare coming true, so I can continue my existence in this fashion.

And it also sucks because it's Christmas, and everyone's on vacation and wants you to be celebrating when you want to be focusing on survival and employment. And all my contracts are canceling during my time of need, because it's the holidays. So no income.

I'd say this was the worst Christmas ever, but my friend Tyler died by suicide near Christmas back in highschool, so I think that still takes it.

I got a good luck amulet recently, though. I was supporting someone last Sunday, we were waiting for the bus, some lady asks if I've got an extra bus ticket. I tell her I have a bus pass and don't use tickets, but I give her change for the bus. She tells me I really saved her and the only way she can think to repay me is by giving me the heart-shaped luck amulet that has always done her well. Found it a little odd that she would give something with an implied personal value to some random at a bus station that gave her change, so I ask her if she's got a lot of crystals. She assures me she does, then she says she wants to buy me a coffee if she sees me around.

Yo, give me odds on whether or not that chick was hitting on me. Regardless, I need the luck, so I'm putting the amulet to use, keeping it on my person.