[DJ]

Weird. This is the first time I feel like I've gotten a legitimate job when I was actually ready for it.

So as some people probably know, last Feb. I dropped my life in Rhode Island and fled for California, looking to make a fresh start of it. I basically brought 2 duffel bags worth of clothes and books and stuff, and that was it. I had a place to stay and a little over a thousand bucks, and nothing else.

I came out here hoping to turn a new leaf and go from sort of a crazy layabout hipster 20-something with no real prospects to looking at finishing college and maybe saving up some money. I figured the only way to do that would be to have a total change of scenery.

Well, Cali didn't exactly treat me well.

A couple days after I arrived, I went job hunting. Lo, an EBGames was right near my apartment at the time, I walked in and applied, figuring it'd at least be a stopgap until I could get something else going. I was immediately told that I was probably way overqualified for a floor position and should get a resume and apply as a manager, which I did, sort of all excited because shit, that's a pretty good job to get within 72 hours of arriving in a new home.

Long story short, I got strung along for three months. I'd get called back every week or two weeks or so and asked if I was still interested in the job, because they still wanted me but a bunch of stores were getting "shuffled around" so it was taking longer than usual. Then I was told I was going to have to go to some manager's training in San Francisco, which I went to, and they didn't know who I was (they let me stay anyway). Then I go home, and nothing for two more weeks. I'm not out looking for other jobs at this point because there's been every indication that I have one, it just hasn't kicked in yet.

In retrospect, this was pretty stupid.

It never panned out. I finally went back into the store in a huff and found...A new manager. The old one had quit a few weeks ago. They had no idea who I was. Sorry.

All my savings quickly dried up, and eventually I was forced to start looking for more work. This was complicated by the fact that the girls I was living with decided, right then, to move out of their apartment and into a more expensive one, taking me with them (where else was I gonna go?)

So once I got set up in the new place, I started hitting up craigslist, telling myself I'd take any work but foodservice. I did my time in foodservice when I was a teenager. I have enough technical experience and good work references with the comany I used to be a salesman for that I did not need to work fucking food service, right? Plus, I live in Silicon Valley! I'm a child of the tech age! I should be able to walk into a random building around here and see a handful of 300lb. bearded nerds sitting in a giant hot tub full of money and coke, in a 50,000 square foot office space lined with plasma televisions being paid $200 an hour to blog about how "M$ blows my ballz Nintendo 4 lyfe" on their iPhones they got months before the thing was released while being blown by the entire cast of the Angelia Jolie lookalike competition. Right?!

Yeah right.

Interview after interview after interview. Invariably, I'd be told that I was their "second choice" or they were "very close to choosing" me, BUT.

This is somehow worse than being told you're a complete failure and they'd rather hire a gorilla with crabs than consider you for the position.

Finally, and with pretty much no option left to me, I walked into Starbucks and applied.

I found out yesterday that that Starbucks is the busiest one in the area by a mile. I believe it.

Working there for a month did a few things. One, it had me waking up in at 3AM to go open the store. It also taught me to speak Barista, which I suppose is a sort of useful skill -- I can not only tell you exactly what a triple grande x-hot no-whip blended upside down sugar free caramel macchiato is now, but how to make it and what the cup marking would look like ("3 % SFC XH WC U CM"). It was also soul-crushingly depressing to realize that, given my hours and pay, I was gonna be there for a year or more before I could even think about paying for stuff like school, and at no point was I going to be having anything resembling spending money.

Not only that, but holy fuck. That job has convinced me that every woman in the valley who spends more than 30 seconds on makeup in the morning needs to be dragged into the street and shot repeatedly in the face if there is to be any hope left for humanity. The valley cows who resemble a bloated Paris Hilton and talk like a brain damaged female version of Bill and Ted on helium, who have their flashing pink cellphones, with functions they will never have the mental dexterity to even comprehend let alone use, basically surgically implanted into their ear canals and almost universally sporting those horrible yapping toy dogs that just make you want to immediately move towards the nearest living thing and kill it.

God I hate those women.

And it always seemed to be women, for some reason. Very rarely did we get the Valley meathead douchebag males, though I know such a breed exists and is equally as repulsive (though possibly less annoying).

Anyway, a month of this (and again, I was routinely having to get up at 3AM on top of it) had me sliding into a pretty deep depression. Finally, after a particularly shitty shift, I became convinced I was literally going to go mad if I couldn't at least maintain the illusion that I was only holding this job down until I could get something better. Even if nothing ever came of it, I wanted to at least pretend I had something to look forward to when I got home.

So I scoured Craigslist that day and applied to about 12 jobs, planning on setting up on a bunch of other job-search sites until I finally found something. Anything.

So I get all that out of my system, and them I'm kind of sitting there, trying to empty my head and relax a bit, and I'm thinking "Well wait a sec. A lot of those jobs I applied to are in San Fran. I have no car. That's an hour and a half commute one way. ... Shit, I probably won't even be able to accept those jobs even if I get them." So more out of curiosity than anything else, I pop back on Craigslist and start seeing how many jobs are actually in San Jose, as opposed to the bay area at large.

And then I notice that hey, the listings for the 27th extend off the page here. Clicking to the next page, there is one more job listed for the day. It's in San Jose. It pays surprisingly well, and is an office job as a billing assistant for a medical firm. Experience preferred but not required. Hrm.

So I apply.

Next day I get an e-mail, setting up an interview.

Turns out, the place is almost right next to my house. No car needed, I can very easily walk there. I walk in, and it's a nice, quiet office building, single-story, in the shade of a giant tree. Nice and calm. The woman who runs the building is very pleasant and we get along immediately, but she tells me that my lack of experience is sort of a big issue. I do my best to show that I'm a quick learner when it comes to programs and that sort of thing and totally don't mind sitting off in the corner with a computer doing my own thing all day and getting paid to do it. She tells me she has to make a decision soon and will call me up at the end of the day.

She calls back, and tells me she can't make up her mind and wants to do a second interview.

Usually, this is good, but in my experience, if you're not hired outright right away for small-ish businesses, it means there's serious competition for the position. MY position. Which would solve ALL my problems, if I could get it. God dammit.

Second interview is very brief, and I'm unable to decide if this is good or bad. She asks if I'd mind terribly working part-time, which I simply cannot afford to do.

So I'm sort of watching the best opportunity I'd seen in six months go swirling down the potty.

That was sort of a rough night.

Anyway.

I got called yesterday, out of the blue, and told that she'd come to a decision, and she'd be happy to extend me an offer to work full-time, starting immediately.

So yeah. Now I have a well-paying office job, a solid workweek, and it has nothing to do with food service or anything even close to it.

I'm so relieved I don't even know where to start.

I'm just kind of hoping I don't fuck this up.
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[schild]

I did paperwork for an insurance company as my first real job when I moved to Arizona (though I did the permanent move thing and rented moves to move all of my shit. But anyway, I was in and out of crappy jobs for a while also (ironically, my first was Gamestop). Anyway, point being, now that you've found a good job (and don't take this the wrong way), it's time to start looking for a job you'd ENJOY being good at. I work at GoDaddy.com now, I get paid too much for doing too little. But I'm good at the job. Very good at it. I found the job while I was working elsewhere. It's like girlfriends, it's easier to find other chicks to sleep with when you have one.

[psiga]

tl;dr
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[psiga]

Okay, okay, I read it now.

I...already knew most of this! Recap episode! Boooo!

(Congrats, Matt. I hope that you get oriented smoothly and totally get paid on time.)
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[Kappuru]

[internisus]

[Ashura]

This is a great story, Deus. Glad to hear that something looks promising. I went through a period of false starts with a couple different companies there for a while myself, one including a contract with a well known company that didn't pay up, and when they did, it wasn't the right amount.

[psiga]

[cthuljew]

Craigslist has solved at least 80% of the problems in my life. Also, be fuckitg happy you didn't get that EB job. You'd be stuck in it for years, get shit pay for 60 hour weeks and take more shit from middle-management than a million flies could use in a million years.
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Answer the question.

[internisus]

dude he was trying to be that middle-management.

[cthuljew]

[internisus]

I don't know. I think he would have at least been able to change employees' schedules. That's pretty awesome!

[cthuljew]

Er, I suppose I should clarify: I was a GameStop ASM. The things said above are factually true.
_________________

Answer the question.

[internisus]

Oh. I see.

I was just being a jackass, then.

[psiga]

[cthuljew]

Thanksgiving to New Years, finals and projects-due time, would've also been required 50-60 hour week time as well. Just sayin'.
_________________

Answer the question.

[psiga]

I thought he said 40 at the time, but I don't recall exactly. I'll just stop speaking for him and go the hell to sleep.
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[GcDiaz]

Congrats, DJ. Life works in mysterious ways.
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[Gironika]

Great to read you did find a job, DJ, I really hope it works out for you!

Reminds me of when I applied for a position at Siemens and made my way up to a group consisting of 10 people that were left, though they didn't take me in the end. Take this chance and make the best of it, good luck!
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[eretsua]

hey DeusJester, congratulations with your new job! and good luck with it as well.
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[DJ]

Thanks folks!

And yeah, the managerial position was gonna pay somewhere in the area of 30k a year, though that's going by what the dude told me, and he also told me I, you know, had the job (told me more than once!), so I dunno how much stock I put in that by this point.

Today was my last day at Starbucks, and it was a pretty brutal shift (3:45AM to 1PM with a half-hour lunch in there that I wound up taking at 8AM). I'm sorta glad I stuck it out, though I will admit it was sort of nice to just have no barrel to be staring down anymore, which made things a lot less stressful. I knew that once that shift was up, that was it regardless, so it was easier to just knuckle down and do it rather than do it with the knowledge that the next 12 months were going to be like this or worse. That makes a huge difference.

I also was able to put my foot down to make it less stressful for myself, which felt really nice.

See, Starbucks has a few positions. "Bar" is where you do all the espresso drinks and whatnot. This takes rather a lot of training and rote memorization to be able to do quickly. Next time you're at Starbucks, check out the people making your drinks, especially if it's busy. See all those cups lined up there? They have to do all those, and they could be anything. More often than not they also have a significant amount of modifiers attached.

During my shift, we only had 5 people on, which meant one person would be doing cold and hot bar full-time. The manager on had been with the company for about three years. I had been with them one month, and in that month it had been so busy that I'd never actually gotten a chance to train on bar. You need a period of time where it's slow and steady, with somone able to back you up if you get hit with a rush so that things don't get backed up too far.

Despite this, he doesn't feel like doing bar, so he sticks the least experienced person in the store -- me -- on it because he knows anyone else will complain.

So I'm thinking "Well, whatever, he knows I barely know how to do this, so I guess these people will just have to wait while I take my time doing this."

Needless to say, we wound up with what the end-shift till showed to be the busiest Sunday morning on record in that location's history.

After about a half hour, I pretty much dropped all pretense and demanded (politely) to be taken off bar, and was told I was "doing fine" (this as there are literally 30-40 cups in the queue and a line out the door) while the manager was standing around eating a scone.

Understand that I had been nothing but overly polite my entire time there, and had never even coming close to raising my voice or questioning anyone or really doing anything even remotely confrontational. Now, though? Imagine a five second pause, then the sound of a bunch of crap being promptly let go and dropped loudly into a sink before I open my mouth:

"Okay. I've had maybe a half-hour of bar time in my entire month here. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck I'm doing. You're eating. I'm not going to be done with these for an hour at this rate, and these people are all waiting. Why the hell am I on bar?"

I pretty much forced him to replace me. As anyone who's ever seen me get genuinely mad in person can attest to, my personality radically changes once I cross a certain mental line. It's really sudden and tends to take people aback, which is really advantageous when the guy who will normally put up with anything is suddenly actively not taking shit and goes from quiet to borderline-hostile.

For obvious reasons I have to keep that in check at a job I want to keep, but shit, when I'm on my last day?

It got the point across. I was obviously stressed out and at this point making no attempt to hide it -- this was all said well within earshot of the massive line. While I doubt this would've gotten me fired (I've seen several employees do far worse there) it certainly would've got me a talking-to and probably had my hours reduced.

Instead it made my last day into something bearable, while still serving as a nice reminder to be thankful I was getting a better job. A nice extra shove out the door as it were.
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[internisus]

I can't imagine having to go back to food service. I'm so sorry you went through that.

Keep us posted on this new job!

[scratchmonkey]

FYI, "The Valley" in California generally refers to the San Fernando Valley, which is where Valley Girls come from and is also approximately 350 miles south of San Jose.

PS: Congrats!

[DJ]

Actually people around here say "The Valley" to refer to Silicon Valley all the time. See Valleywag, etc.

Although on the east coast people seemed to use it to refer to any part of California that wasn't a desert.
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[Hot Stott Bot]

lul wut is kalifornia i m dum boston man!?!? o_O

[DJ]

[Hot Stott Bot]

Ha, that's pretty amusing.

[boojiboy7]

Never tell anyone you are from Cleveland. I swear, people seem to think we are like fucking a third world country or something.

[IIOIOOIOO]

Because Cleveland is a shithole.

[IIOIOOIOO]

Also, how in the hell do people work for wages like that? Seriously. 30k is the GOOD job?

[boojiboy7]

[cthuljew]

Dude, I'm from Minneapolis, and even I think Cleveland is kind of a shithole. Not near as much as, say, anything between Iowa and Louisiana, but still...
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Answer the question.

[boojiboy7]

Yeah, see, anyone from any city will tell you Cleveland is a shithole because somehow we are known as such. It's kinda funny. They all act like Cleveland is the only city to ever set a river on fire.

I mean, it isn't like I am trying to convince anyone of anything, but it is just funny that tons of people who probably have never been here think it is a shithole.

[IIOIOOIOO]

Been there.

Also.. Hey! I'm in Eden Prairie! Just bought a place down here. Minny is not that bad.

[Daphaknee]

holy shit awesome, now we can hang out more yes
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the internet's

[Krazii Bakon Lypes]

ON average, how much did you make at Starbucks per hour (I mean with the tip jar and whatnot)? Like yourself, I was recently strung along by a prospective employer and then summarily fucked in the ass over the course of a month, and now I am seriously fucked. Like, selling all of my possessions and borrowing money from my girlfriend to pay rent. I would tell my own story, but it's close enough to yours.

[internisus]

Don't you have a fallback? Family you can stay with until you're back on your feet?

[scratchmonkey]

[Daphaknee]

yeah the valley isnt a native term, its one used by people who come here. its a good way to tell WHO YOU FORIEGNERS ARE
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the internet's

[internisus]

We prefer the politically correct terminology: "aliens"

[GcDiaz]