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3 Mar 2024 - 3:09pm

Just getting around to posting this...

—-(almost a week ago)—-

Welp.

I lasted 6 days at the data entry gig.

Last week the scheduler put me on for this week. Just now, while riding the 2nd of 3 buses down to the work site, the scheduler left a voicemail to inform me I’m off the job, due to there “not being enough work” to keep me on. This is probably a lie. I’m probably being dropped because… and this will shock you, unknown reader… I was working too slowly. The recruiter who originally evaluated my typing speed said so. My team lead said so.

There’s clearly enough work for my team lead to be training 4-6 new workers a day. There’s definitely leftover work left at the end of our shifts, for a project that we were told would take the next 6 months to complete. I wish these middle managers would just be straight with me.

I’m still on the bus. I’ll check back w/ my contact at the temp agency. I’ll comport myself professionally. I’ll remind them that data entry isn’t really my strong suit, that I’d be a better fit for a graphics-related job of some kind. I’m just going to transfer and ride to the Starbucks near the office as I normally would. I’ll call the scheduler back to confirm that I received his voicemail. I’ll try to get some kind of straight answer from him regarding the actual reason for my dismissal, but I’ll speak calmly, quietly and respectfully.

And I’ll call Shelby-Alice to let her know what’s going on.

—-(15 minutes later)—-

Just got off the call w/ my recruiter at the temp agency; they let the entire evening shift go. So… it wasn’t me after all. Although I do take some reassurance in that, I’m just further reminded that my paranoia and insecurity are alive and well, and still primed to run riot. There is a possibility I can get on the weekend shift. I need to make more money, so I’ll see if I can get on the 8-hour morning shift. I don’t know how I'd make that work on public transit, but first things first.

In other developments: I’ve started the process of archiving my entries here. It should take me… a month? Because I don’t intend to make it my job. But I do want to be ready for the day when this site is no more. I’ll even try to get ahead of that eventuality and establish a parallel blog and post links, for those interested readers that may be following this story. I can’t tell any more; the page-view meters stopped metering years ago. It is very likely that I’m doing all this in an empty space. I’m ok with that. I talk to myself constantly, in the meatverse as well as the metaverse.

Other things:

The wished/hoped/prayed-for return of VFX work to L.A. …hasn’t returned yet. It may not, at all, ever. Or if it does, it may return in some newly enshittified* form, force-adapted to these newly enshittified times. The WGA/SAG strikes ended late last year. A possible AITSE strike looms in the Spring/Summer. SORA and other AI abominations hover in the distance. Studio ratfuckers executives and AMPTP ghouls slurp mimosas and happily contemplate the masses of jobless, un-unionized and increasingly desperate VFX workers like me, scrambling over one another to take a 25% pay cut to work unpaid OT on their sausage-factory tentpole sequels.

So, I don't know. My hope waxes and wanes. The low side of the average came up a bit last week, owing to having a regular job to show up to. The public transit aspect of my commute felt like a move in the direction of normal. The data entry process left my mind blank for the first few nights, then I felt like I'd found my flowstate. Although I knew I was working too slowly, I also was in the process of improving my working speed. The part-time hours weren't enough to cover everything, and I knew I'd still have to ask family for financial help, but I felt like I'd restored a small sense of self-agency.

Back to blind-applying. Back to 'Easy Applying™' on LinkedIn and Indeed.

Also, this:

I'm working on something. It might wind up on my next demo reel. It might not. It's something creative. For myself. Because if I don't give myself something creative to work on for myself... this time, I really will stop living.

*yes, of course: Cory Doctorow coined this term. I wouldn't not credit the man for his marvelously evocative description of the bad fork in timeline we've all taken.

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