Rusty's Blog

This is one of a series of posts about jobs I’ve had during my time on this planet. You can read more posts by clicking the “jobs i’ve had” tag, and read a lengthier intro to the series in the first post.

Truth is, the fallout from the newspaper job messed me up for a while. I was even more bitter and cynical than usual, which is saying something.

I had interviewed for a P.R. job with DeKalb County government after I’d been friendly with the guy who came on to run the operation near the end of my time at the newspaper. I almost landed the job too. It came down to me and one other person, and she ended up getting the job. She was someone I liked and respected and who was a better candidate on paper, so I couldn’t blame them.

But it was the last straw that made me want to get away from that world in a professional capacity for a while, if not forever. While I was regrouping and figuring out what I wanted my real next step to be, I had to find a job of some sort. Temp work was the logical thing to do.

I always imagined working for temp agencies as filling in for someone while they were on vacation for a few days or maybe a week, or going in as a buffer worker after someone was fired or quit; doing mindless office tasks like copying and faxing, something where there was no commitment or expectations whatsoever.

And it turned out to be pretty mindless and easy. I had to call dentists’ offices and find out if they had already installed the new version of the company’s software. If they had, I marked them off. If they hadn’t I scheduled an appointment for someone to walk them through the installation. Eventually, I also got to walk them through upgrading their software. That really was it.

As time went on, I did less scheduling and more walk-throughs. I could read blogs and write blog posts on my first blog all day while this went on, until they started blocking some sites through a proxy near the end of my time there. I had the routine down cold and could read and talk to customers at the same time.

My contract was for six months, but the job bled into about eight as contract work tends to do. They were hiring, and I interviewed for a full-time support position there, but my heart wasn’t in it. The interviewer asked me what my dreams were, and no shit, I told him my dream was to drink beer and play golf all day and get paid for it. The semantics bugged me I guess. Ask me what my goals are, sure. Even ask me what my hopes are. But my dreams? That’s a little lofty for this interview bub.

Obviously I was self-sabotaging because I didn’t really want to work there. The mature adult, yet still slightly passive-aggressive response might have been to answer by talking about goals and making a point of emphasizing the word GOALS.

Speaking of unprofessional things I did at this job, after they decided not to renew my contract, I wrote an email blast to the product team in pirate speak on my last day. The awesome thing about having a blog from that time is I printed the email I wrote there, with company and product names redacted:

TO: Everyone
SUBJECT: Ahoy!
CONTENT: Alas mateys…

Today, nine July in the Year of our Lorde 2004, ’tis my last voyage on the S.S. [PRODUCT NAME].

Good luck to everyone. If you need or want to reach me for any reason, send an email to [other email address]. I’ll be out of town next week, but will hit you back when I return.

I did meet some cool people at that job I wish I’d kept in touch with.

The week prior to my last week, I went out and got lit with the guy who’d been my supervisor. He was a fellow UT grad, did a stint in the Army, and had a lot of good stories. I think he might have been bullshitting a lot of the time, but I didn’t really care.

He knew some of the bartenders at Dave and Busters, so we got well drinks three-for-one that afternoon, slammed six each, and staggered into a strip club around 6:30 or 7. If you think strip clubs are weird places during peak hours, try wandering into one when it’s still daylight and you’re ripped out of your skull. I blew a lot of money that night, which might not have been the smartest thing for someone who knew he was about to be unemployed to do.

There was also a Tech grad I went and had beers with a few times and shot the breeze with at work all through the day.

Both were smart guys and fun to hang out with. One day for lunch we drove down from the suburbs to The Vortex in Little Five Points for lunch. Not a big deal now since I drive by there several times per week, but at the time I’d never spent any time in Little Five Points other than to drive through it by accident when looking for Manuels.

They talked about starting a business together, but I’m pretty sure this never happened.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 6:36 am. It was tagged autobiography, dave and busters, job, jobs, jobs i've had, l5p, little five points, the vortex, yaaarr tis me blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.