h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone seemed ultra-sensitive at w*rk yesterday. .... Too many customers didn't even acknowledge me when I said hello.

And the night before, I started getting down on myself: "What are you doing, still in retail? Are you mad? Why are you wasting so much time, when you could instead be writing, editing, helping out the creative world? Bloody hell, you idiot..."

And I had to keep telling myself I hadn't closed it all off. I have poetry workshops every month, I submitted three poems a couple weeks ago to two different places, I'm going to read poetry in a few weeks in Denver (first time outside of a classroom setting!!! YAY!!!), I read a poem to the class I am TA-ing a couple weeks ago, I am almost daily (sometimes TWICE a day!!!) discussing and/or sharing poetry with my great friend here on hootoo, Lady Pennywhistle, and I have a 20-poem manuscript ready to send to a statewide chapbook contest, AND I am progressively working on an e-journal for a school-related mountain restoration project, AND I will soon write an editorial defending poetry for the newspaper I used to work on.

The problem is that I spend more than 40 hours a week marketing wares, thanking people *not* for hearing my poem, or for reading my manuscript, or for handing in a paper in time for me to go over it and copy-edit/provide suggestions, or for being a part of a poetry workshop with me, but for buying something some bloody far away manufacturer created.

It's very impersonal.

Very uncreative.

Not

me...

This job used to be a means to an end: my vehicle for getting THROUGH college. Now I have my bachelors. After earning it, well, I was just going to stick around for the bonus check in March. Then I was just sticking around because the pay is so good. And I stick around because it makes it easy to afford my car payments and other bills.

Yesterday I told a six year old to be careful about what degree he gets in college, because I was angry at myself for having to reorganize plant stands that didn't really fit on the ugly white metal shelves ANYWAY.

*I* didn't make much effort to use my writing degree to get a job outside of college. Yes. Two different professors have me working for them now. But I didn't volunteer my services at all-- a testament, apparently, to my work ethic and skills...

... I've just lost work ethic for my full time job. Let's just refer to is as my wage-producer. Meh.

... There IS good news. Yesterday morning, I figured out that as long as I can KEEP $6.50/hr from a 40 hour/week paycheck, I can manage my expenses and still have a bit to save every month. I got quite misty-eyed about that.

I never did the math. Because this Wal*Mart job has funded me for four and a half years. It's close to home. It's not a challenge, except to my spirit. It pays REMARKABLY well, but I get no recognition and terrible benefits, truth be known.

How, I ask, will keeping this wage-maker HELP me get into grad school (ah ha!!! Draggers DOES have a career mapped out!!! ... poetry prof, remember!?? Ok... I remember too.)!??... It really won't.

Driving the forklift and the scissor lift will probably help me get a gig down in Antarctica (Career Fair on April 8th!!! YAY!!!), and every experience is to be learned from.

But I'm not even writing public announcements. So. I feel my creativity's been zapped.

I'm soooo rambling.

Anyrot. Working for a newspaper (I sent my resume to one via email yesterday; the other, bigger newspaper wants something more, which is all ready to slip into a manilla envelope...) will be better. I will make connections, I will polish my journalistic skills (which help in all areas of life, far as I can see!!!!), I will stay mentally ignited.

Why should I force myself to stay miserable, just to reach financial goals?... there are other legal ways, too.

Why does everyone I meet seem to get so bent out of shape about doing a job unrelated to their degree?

Sometimes you just need to have money coming in to avoid complete financial ruin while you're waiting for the kind of job you really *do* want to do. There's no shame at all in that!



...Even if you aren't wild about the idea of selling goods produced by those who live in another part of the world, who may not be earning much and working unreasonably long hours, under working conditions that wouldn't be allowed in this country. But let's face it, without the existence of the jobs those factories provide, what chance would those people have of finding *any* job at all? Slim to none, right? So while it is certainly not be the ideal situation (for you *or* them), it does serve a purpose.




Then again...

Maybe your real concern was that you feel like you're selling out for the almighty dollar. But the thing is, if you've ever tried to get along without enough of those dollars to put food on the table and a roof over your head, you start to realize just how important it really is to have enough to provide the necessities in life.


Besides, if you are truly interested in pursuing your masters, methinks it would behoove you to have at least part of the funds necessary for that endeavor tucked away before you start, so that you aren't struggling to make ends meet when you *should* be concentrating on master's degree related studies. There's too many things that can happen that can drain a slender bank account in no time - car repairs, unexpected illness, etc.

Meanwhile, you certainly haven't given up on your writing. Nor, I'm sure, have you give up on learning. And some of what you're learning in the interim, I promise you'll put to use someday - either when you're working on your masters, or in a future career.


A 40 hour/week job still leaves you 128 hours/week to pursue your real interests. So go. Pursue them. The 40 hour/week job is just to keep you from living on the streets. You're just lucky that it provides a comfortable living, because many people aren't making enough to have that level of comfort.

I was listening to Suze Orman on PBS the other day ... when she said something that made a lot of sense to me. Her advice to a young graduate is to go out and get a job where you want to work. Pick a place. Get hired at *any* position, then show up early, stay late and do whatever it takes to be a superior employee that the company would be thrilled to have. She said to keep doing this for as long as it takes and eventually, the money *will* come. I know this to be true. In the mean time, she proposed only using credit only for absolute necessities.

Suze cited as an example a young woman who was offered a job designing toys for $65,000 a year. She didn't want to design toys ... she had studied design and wanted to design shoes for a living. Suze told her not to take the toy job, but instead, advised her to take a much lower paying job at the shoe company where she really wanted to be. The young woman followed the advice, living on a scant budget for several years. In the end, at the shoe company, this young woman was paid *far* more than the toy company's offer and was completely thrilled with the life's work she had chosen. Had she taken the job at the toy company, she would have locked herself in as she became completely dependent on those larger wages.

The key is debt. Get out of it and stay out of it as much as possible ... that way you'll maintain the freedom to move in the direction *you* choose, not by the dictates of your creditors.

Don't allow the lure of Wal*Mart's wages to be a trap ... higher than average wages can be, and often are, just that.

A. Dragonfly


By the way, I'm not plugging a book here ... but you might want to go to the library and get Suze Orman's "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke". While I haven't read it, I did watch her (aforementioned) lecture on it and was intrigued by her new approach to finances for your specific generation, Draggers. The old school of thought that our parents and teachers told us is no longer working in our present economic times. Isn't it awful that freedom tends to boil down to money? I never thought much about money matters at your age, but I wish I had. You're at the perfect age to get a tremendous head start in life if you'll take the time to learn about it ... boring suject that it is.

By the way, higher wages are only a trap if you become accustomed to spending them all. While you are at Wal*Fart, SAVE. Eschew wasteful spending ... once you have a chunk of change in your bank account, you can do as you damn well please. Then, you can thumb your nose at them all.

I don't think any of us who work full time have 128 hours a week to pursue our goals. With all due respect, Lady Scott, you haven't allowed for sleep, meals, cooking, cleaning, and sex.

I may only be paid for 40 hours a week, but there is added time getting ready for work, driving to and from work, and lunch time. In the end, rather than an eight hour day, I have about ten and a half hours invested in my job each day ... and I'm lucky enough to wo*k only minutes from my home.

Just ignore what I said...

Ack.

Lady Scott

I'm just spouting ideas.

$6.50 an hour is hardly the fine wage that it seems to be portrayed as in this discussion so far

All the same, for Draggers

Draggers was talking about how much she could keep from her wages there, Gosho ... probably after taxes, withholdings and junk.

"Yesterday morning, I figured out that as long as I can KEEP $6.50/hr from a 40 hour/week paycheck, I can manage my expenses and still have a bit to save every month."

If your expenses are that low, Draggers, then surely you could aford to move on to bigger and better things.

I know, AW - but she did say in her first post that her job pays REMARKABLY (her capitals) well. If she has very low outgoings she does pretty well off it, but I was pointing out that either way, $6.50 an hour is not a great wage.

You're right ... I hadn't noticed a specific number while reading her post at first. Draggers, why the hell are you still wo*king at Wally World?

Because it pays so well

Seriously though - I ferget precisely where it is that Draggers lives, but there are branches of the CD store I used to work at here in Austin, in Boulder and in Denver. The pay there starts at $6.00 an hour but you can very quickly and with little effort work your way up to $8.00 and more.

I trow in cliche if do not mind!

writers need suffer to have some thing write about


...or was that comedians

...Dragonfly to be publish so I can say I knew when she was not famous

...Dragonfly wrote here (like Kilroy was here)

The trouble is ... you need to earn $10 an hour to get $6.50 an hour take home pay ... then *that* amount is taxed further each and every time you purchase something. When it's all said and done ... you actually get to keep seventy five cents a week.

Draggers should write a book of poetry on how to live on "75 cent" a week ... she could get rich.

Hee hee hee... Hello Everyone!!! s all 'round!!!

Yeah... I feel a bit better about Wal*Mart. It really really isn't forever, or for that much longer, for that matter.

I don't worry terribly about my savings. Because I am lucky enough not to have to worry. (Read: Spoiled. Lives at Home.)

Gosho, the starting pay here is about $8.25 because of the cost of living.

A How-To book of poetry!?? AW, you are quite a genius. ... That's really quite a clever idea.

Lady Scott, there are plusses and minuses to changing my job. The same is true for keeping my current one. The problem is a delimma of survival... I know my poetic side won't ever DIE, but it is certainly not happy with my current occupation.

My bestest friend is of the opinion that I don't HAVE to work in my field before going to grad school; that doing so will help me get into a university... She's probably right, but... I want what everyone wants: to love what they do.