It's been several months since I spent any productive time there. I think the last time was May 13th. I only know because I have a dial calendar that stays on the last date I set, and I always set it so I can see when the last visit was. I started out journaling, which got dropped in mid-May for some reason. Maybe because the kids were off school. In any case, I tried to make the best of my late-January home life, buried in the snow with the rest of Cleveland.
I started out this year in an office job 28 miles away. Anyone who talked to me during that time knows the mileage, because I moaned and groaned about it every time I referred to the job. I worked for a good company with good people. But it was a horrible fit. It was a production job, and I am not a production artist or person or anything. Production is not something I can do, no matter how hard I try. I am productive, but not a production person by any stretch of the imagination. I was not as fast as the person I worked with and felt paranoid and inadequate. On top of that (and the dreadful ride), I absolutely hated the product, which was the ugliest catalog you ever laid eyes on, Dr. Leonard's. We had to lay out scores of products that might (or might not) appeal to the elderly, like incontinence products, wart cream, fat rings, toilet raisers, shower seats, age spot lotions, slippers, support hose and my personal favorite (yech), toe fungus ointment. Of course there were photos. Everyone was so different. I got to sit by Martha, who had a dry sense of humor and a Schultz collection. She kept to herself and was very efficient, responsible and bored. She quit right after I did. There was Patti, who was there the longest, was one of the smokers, still dressed up in skirts from time to time and worked like a dog. She sat next to John, a transplant from the south who was great at football, had 2 adorable daughters and a gorgeous wife. He was very fun to listen to and had some opinions and timing. There was Tony, who never left the building and could set anyone at ease. Jerry was so cool, looked good all the time and was very East Coast. The photo department was all that a photo department is, fun, funny and cool. Laurel was a belly dancer and wrote copy, Margaret wrote copy, rode motorcycles and was a good cook. As I inch closer to my own cubicle, I cannot remember some of the people. Oh yeah, there was Chris, who was perfect and fast and liked sports and beer. He was quiet and kind to me, even if I made his life miserable. Mark was an adorable ex-stripper who was amazing on cars and was very good at the catalog work even though he just learned it. There was Jerod, who kept out of everything and was funny also. Dependable. The guy next to him was my boss, Amy's little brother. They finished each other's lines. Also extremely dependable. Amy gave me every chance in the world to make it, but it was for nothing. She was kind enough to hire me and probably sorry in the end that she had. She was convinced that I was on the internet all day, even if I was not. The thing that convinced her was a giant, bigger-than-a-phone-book stack of printouts that said where I was on the internet. Now this place did allow you to check your email at lunch, something I was even afraid to do at first. But I noticed even the "best kids" did, so I gave myself my 20 minutes.
When they first hired me, they figured I would have work to do within the first 2 weeks. I got all set up and found out there was a delay. I needed the money, so though I had very little to do, I was glad to be there. The weather was still good, the pay was good, the people were fine, so I was happy. I learned what I could of what was coming, though no one could give me a clue of how to do it exactly, because THEY did not know-- it was going to be an import that we had to remodel. I learned a bit more of the system and then started to help Tony and Martha and whomever needed help, and I did okay. At some points, I even turned things around much faster than they expected. I was thrilled that I could do this work, finally. Things dried up and Georgenne, the Big Boss, who looked like a double of my husband's ex-wife (not that she is bad-looking, but Memories...), told me to go ahead and look at my catalog online and get used to the products and websites. I did that. I also looked up things on the version of Quark I was going to be using and whatever else I could think of to be productive. This meant, I was ON the internet. This went into my big book of printouts.This went on for some time. I was hired the last days of August and the work did not come in until late October. As soon as it came in, the place went NUTS trying to get the book out, which was bigger with a shorter deadline than the other books. The work was distributed and I was left in the dust. I geared up for the next round, but it was always a waiting game, and then BOOM. It was all new to me-- I had never laid out a catalog in MY LIFE, let alone this one. Even Martha said she would not have been able to keep up with that pace. And there was no way I was going to, that is for sure.
I pretty much RAN out of there. I was so happy to be let go, even though I felt bad that I was always going to have the reputation for being on the internet. Oh, also-- I use Google home page. That means I had several boxes with several websites listed on my homepage. Not only that, but I had several tabs. Each tab held even more sites. Each time I logged on, all 50 of those web addresses came up on that Phone Book, along with all their cookies. I know because I looked at it. The more I tried to be productive while everyone else was talking in the aisle while waiting for pages to come in-- the more mistakes I made in cover wraps, layouts and details. I STUNK at the job, no matter what I tried to do.
I still get nervous and relive the nightmare just by driving the 271-480-71 route, either way. I need healing.
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