So I made it through today's interview, although it turned out to be more of a marathon than I'd expected.

I showed up twenty-five minutes before my scheduled time, having taken a brief detour on campus to turn my completed job application in at the school's human resources office, since that's where the application form says it should be sent. So the first thing the woman whose office I got showed into asked, was "Did you get the job application I e-mailed you?" ...and I told her yes, and that I had taken it to HR right before reporting. She says, "Oh - you weren't supposed to take it there, we have our own internal HR."
... >,< Oh yeah off to a roaring good start here.

Then I was handed a list of *four* women's names, and told that I would be interviewing with each of these people in turn. (...eek!) The first two both gave me that "projecting all your confidence into a void" feeling you described, Twig, so you were right on the money there. After the second interviewer, I was discouraged and wondering what the hell I (with my piddly, scattershot resume) was doing there.

The third interviewer came across as much more conversational, and actually talked about not only the good points of the job in question, but some of its bad points, like the fact that it can be repetitive work. (Honey, you ain't seen 'repetitive work' until you've spent a shift at the PO cube farm. What you described is fascinating variety by comparison!) The fourth and final interviewer was the woman who had been promoted out of the position being hired for, and will be the direct supervisor of whoever gets hired. She was a bit more reserved than the third woman, but still quite conversational and showing bits of sneaky humor around the edges.

So I have no idea whether I'll be called back for a second round of interviews; that will be decided in the next week or two. But I survived Round One, and even if I don't get hired this little talk-a-thon will be good practice for the next time around. **sigh**

I think I want to go get drunk now, kthxbai.

Random Weirdness

It feels very strange to not be at work right now. O_o;; It turns out I'm not *quite* done with the store entirely; I had forgotten that this weekend is the anniversay sale, and perhaps the busiest weekend of the year for them. So I volunteered to go in and help this Friday, since even if the job interview goes stunningly well and I got hired on the spot (not likely, but you never know), they probably wouldn't want me to start the very next day.

So yeah, one more day there. And I told the boss if she didn't want to bother with payroll I'd take merchandise credit for Friday's hours. (heh.)

Spent some time in Rissi's office with her on Sunday, messing around on the computer while she started some reports running that she needed for Monday. We stopped in the lunchroom first to get me a soda and her a Frappucino from the vending machines, and she cleaned a couple of scary things out of the refrigerator while there - one of which was a goodness knows how old container of take-out pasta, which was growing an impressive colony of blue-green mold.

It wasn't until we were walking out of the office building a couple of hours later that she said, "I just realized, what I threw out was penne pasta penicillin."
Which (having no self-control, of course) I promptly and gleefully abbreviated to "Penne-cillin!"

She didn't even hit me. Thank you, Rissi! ♥ In gratitude, I go now to do some laundry.

Mixed News

Bad news first, to get it out of the way: after two decades of driving with no accidents, I had my second in a year and a half yesterday. Tried to turn out of my bank's parking lot into what had *looked* like a clear inside lane (of a 4-lane road), only to have the semi truck that had been in the left-hand lane start to merge over. His rear trailer wheels caught the corner of my front bumper and tore it right off.

Not nearly as bad as it might have been. No injuries, the minimal impact didn't even leave me with a stiff neck afterwards. And there was no damage on the truck - so if I'm found at-fault (which I believe is usually the case when one driver is pulling out of a parking lot and the other was already on the road), I'll only be responsible for the deductible on my own vehicle repairs. And the car *should* be repairable. Again.

Right, some *good* news, then! ^_^;;

After the past couple of weeks of job-whinging people have put up with here... I have an interview next Thursday. With the school, but *not* with their temp services; this is for a permanent full-time office support position. Remember the woman whose computer G-Cat upgraded Monday? G-Cat gave her a copy of my resume, and apparently the woman was quite interested and thinks I could handle the job. So - time to brush up the "professional" clothes and attitude. (yeek!)

Hm - since I think I have all the insurance stuff taken care of for the moment, maybe I'll try to draw...

Oh Yeah...

Been so long since I did this, almost forgot to mention it. ^_^;; Very small update over at FireHorse - just a couple of pictures but at least it's something.

Really must get back into drawing more often again...

Second Verse, Same as the First

Friday/Saturday followed the same store/headache pattern as mentioned previously. Makes me very glad I only have two days left there.

Resume has gone in to CMU's Temporary Employment Service. Now I get to wait and see if they call me for an interview. **hums "Final Jeopardy" music** G-Cat is still on the lookout for other possibilities for me; one of the people whose computer she upgraded today was talking about having been promoted, and needing to hire and train a replacement for herself - so I may be applying directly for that, as well.

It's kind of funny: G-Cat being in her new job and all agitating for me to work for the school too is a little bit like having a newly married friend who insists on playing matchmaker for you because *you* should be that happy too. ^__^;; But hey, if it lands me with a steadier paycheck and health insurance, I won't complain.

Mmmmm, and no more post-store migraines...

Being a Stress Bunny

...I'd rather have a plot bunny, thank you? ^_^;; Okay, for those of you who haven't already heard this over IM, it's official; I gave my two week notice at the store last Friday. I'm currently putting my resume together and trying to get in with CMU's temp service (who put G-Cat into the job she's currently enjoying).

I'll be glad when the two weeks is over; both days I've worked at the store since, I've woken up with a headache the next morning. Bleh.

And just to make things even *more* interesting, we're trying to integrate the studio kitty, Hanabi, into the main household. This would avoid having to hike across to the garage 2 - 3 times a day in cold snowy weather, and also avoid the higher heating bill from having to heat the studio rooms more than just what's needed to keep the pipes from freezing. (Yeah, we're cheapskates and wimps. *shrug*) G-Cat cleaned out our sun porch - one of the few areas of the house that can be closed off from the rest - and moved her in last night. So far the boy cats are not at all happy with this idea; Kiri in particular is all full of hisses, yowls and bottlebrush tail. But there hasn't been any outright screaming since early last night, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Mwrrrrrr

I'll almost certainly be giving my two-week notice at the store today; my co-workers have proven their asshat-ness once too often now, and I'm sick of the lack of professionalism. At first it seemed nice to have such a 'relaxed' work atmosphere, but if this is the result... X / I refuse to deal with the two Poster Children for Anger Management Issues masquerading as co-workers anymore.

One of them has been PMS'ing at me for the last couple of years now because he wanted me to date him and I said 'no'. (He's short, overweight, balding, younger than me, appears to have no ambition to ever work at anything more than a minimum-wage job for the rest of his life, is totally obsessed with comic books and Doctor Who, doesn't have a drivers' license and so depends on his friends to get him anywhere he needs to go, and would still be living in his parents' basement if his best friend hadn't agreed to room with him. Oh yes, and has a temper like unstable old nitroglycerin. Isn't that just every girl's dream man...?!?)

But it's the second of the Pissy Twins - the one I thought was the more reasonable of the pair - who's to blame for the shop being one worker short after today. (Or maybe after two weeks if I'm feeling generous.) Basically, the boss forgot something; G-Cat called to remind her of it, and the boss got upset with herself for forgetting. Pissy Twin #2 didn't like the boss being upset, decided it was all G-Cat's fault and called the house asking to speak with her; left a message since she was at work. When she returned the call, he proceeded to ream her a new bodily orifice, to the point that she was in tears after he finished his little diatribe and hung up on her.

Now, I've already given serious thought to quitting this job. It's a 45-minute commute each way; it puts 60 miles on my car every day I work out there. And with the cost of gas as high as it's been, the amount I earn there almost isn't worth it. Inertia (and my employee discount) have pretty much been holding me in place. But this does it. Nobody should have to tolerate a work atmosphere in which co-workers can call and verbally abuse members of their household. Pissy # 2 is just lucky I thought better of taking my nice solid red oak bokutou in to work with me today to get the point across.

**shakes self out** Okay, rant's over. Sorry about that, folks, just had to get it out of my system. In happier news, Thank You, Vel'ithya, for giving me a bright sparkly g-mail account to play with! (see sidebar at right) XD

Oh yeah, and just in case... Rich? Dave? You're both assholes. kthx, have a lousy day.

I Should Know Better...

...than to order Chinese food when my boss at the store gets a craving for it. It never seems to fail, that whenever I break down and get myself a lunch, all of our most long-winded customers either magically show up, or call on the phone. By the time I get to take more than three bites of my meal it's gone stone-cold.

I can't even microwave it, because as soon as the food's warm again, **poof!!**, we get more customers. >,< It's some kind of curse, I think - and room-temperature chicken with broccoli just doesn't appeal that much. Blee.

Looks like the remains of Frances will be hitting this area soon; the other Mews just called to say it's already raining pretty hard at the house. So far, the area around the store is still dry but I don't expect that'll last long.

Sushi Makes For Happy Changeling

Have had a lovely Sunday so far. Fairly lazy coffee & breakfast with Rissicat (G-Cat is at a family reunion in Ohio this weekend). Went to the National Aviary and saw many many cool and colorful birds, including the only Martial Eagle in the US (they're native to Africa, and just gorgeous). Even volunteered to go onstage during the outdoor bird show and have a very large variety of hornbill buzz right over the top of my head - not that I knew that's what I was volunteering for, but hey. ^^

Then an early sushi dinner (G-Cat, if you're reading this, please don't be too jealous?) and home so Riss' can get some of her homework reading done. The rest of the day has more than made up for being awakened earlier than I'd have liked by noisy neighbors. *happy sigh*

New Month, New Layout

I figured everybody was probably tired of staring at Red-boy, so here's something a little more restful on the eyes. ^^ ...and since my last entry before the changeover was posted so late last night, I'm recapping it here.

Some Days I Hate Computers

Earlier, I had this long entry almost completely typed up about the weekend with Lunar and fun stuff we did while there. Was even planning to fake a LiveJournal cut and put some of it on my own website so that folks wouldn't have to be subjected to all the details unless they wanted 'em.

Then Windows decided to belch the entire text file out into the ether. >_<

I may try to re-create parts of it tomorrow, but it's more likely I'll take this as a signal from the universe that I should just say - in spite of all the time spent in the car, and the giant bruise (see archives for explanation), it was a lot of fun and I'm very glad we went.

Oh, and as for the sea glass, Kosagi, the largest piece we found was about half the size of a dime - I'm not sure my digital camera can handle the resolution needed to get a decent picture of those. If you want I can try, but it really was just little fragments (more's the pity).