2003-05-28 - 8:13 p.m.
#118: No Need for the Son of Summation
Note to self: I have to keep reminding myself to focus on the goal of getting the heck out of this rut. And when you have no attention span whatsoever from years of watching syndicated programming, that means constant reminders from the brain to the rest of the body. Whatta slavedriver. On the otherhand, that mind numbing field of white when your consciousness shuts down is rather disturbing....
So, I spent most of today being asleep. After telling myself I was to go to bed early, wake up, shunter my way into the city and do.... job related stuff, hopefully. Obviously that wouldn't have lasted long and I would have eventually ended up in a cinema or at the Graphic Novel Cafe but at least I could have gotten myself out of the house some. Of course, I managed to neatly sabotage my efforts by deciding to go read some Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction which, up till now, I thought I had developed a strong immunity to. Apparently that immunity doesn't spread to rereading old favourites at 12AM in the morning. Sure, I'd read them before and I was barely skimming the text to get to all the juicy bits, but that still takes time.... And by the timr I was completely satisfied I had read my fill it was 3AM in the morning and I'd screwed myself over. Drats. There's always tomorrow, but considering the fact that I'd be going the very next day to an AAC night at the GNC, it hardly seems worth it. Well done to me, indeed.
And what have I been doing in the last couple of months? Just this and that. "This and that" meaning being unemplyed, of course. I tried doing the whole "letting your brain have a word in" trick yesterday by just lying back in bed and letting my thoughts go. Apart from mostly scattered brained musings (including one about that episode of The Nanny where Niles the butler swaps places with Mr. Sheffield for a while and Mr. Sheffield had to play the butler which was quite possibly the best episode of any show ever because Niles is just so cool and so forth) all that I picked up were simply a repetition of yesterdays little spat about getting a job. And then it was back to thinking about that girl from Wonder Years who got really hot in the later seasons and whatever happened to her, anyway? So I need to get a job. My shift at MacDonalds ended after I decided to throw in the towel after eight months of work. The sudden shift in management and the promise to myself that I would leave after 6 months finally made themselves known to me, and I decided to tally-ho off and get my dream job at Borders; where I would be surrounded by books, CDs and DVDs all day long.... Of course, that didn't happen at all: So I was out of a job and didn't have one waiting for me at the place I thought would be perfect for me. So I moped around for a month. Or two. Then I decided to finally go to WINZ and summit myself to the dole system so I would get free money. They were more than happy to give me free money, so long as I continued to long for work myself at a rate of 3 enquiries a day. So I submitted myself to their system, bought a newspaper, rung up three numbers for placements I thought were interesting, and was told to come in for an interview with one of them. I was quite ecstatic, afterall it involved "movies" which everybody is interested in and "marketing" which I thought was a fancy word for "cheerful happy people who get paid lots for their work". Oh, how wrong I was.
If you'd read an entry of mine just two doors down, you'd know how THAT job ended up. I lasted for about a week knocking at peoples doors and feeling like an utter ass for asking people to fork over their money to a complete stranger who was dressed like a member of the local Baptist church. I mean, I certainly wouldn't trust me (or door to door salesmen in general), so why should other people? On the otherhand, I got riled up at the people who DIDN'T give me money.... So it was a lose-lose situation. Either I got their money and felt ashamed, or I didn't get their money and felt miffed. By the time I'd finished a full five day working week with the marketing company, I was at a point fit to crack and scream wildly. In fact I did, as I mentioned before, and quit the very next day. I don't think I could have kept up with the kind of lifestyle adjustment the job required anyway. The first thing that I noticed was the unusual working hours: Though we had to turn up at the office at 11 (at which point we had to practice our "pitch" at each other. Dear god, that was highly embarassing and made me nervous to all hell) we didn't actually start work until about 2PM, when we piled into several cars and went to our assigned areas and routes to try and offload our stuff. Due to the fact that other people would still be at work until 5Pm or so, we worked our territories over several times by picking away at the excess baggage (those who stayed at home around these hours were usually the old, the sickly, the unemployed, the bleeding dole bludgers who couldn't afford to pry a penny out of their ares but could fill a fridge with sixpacks.... The people who we really couldn't get a deal out of: "Section 5"s they were called) before moving in for the kill later in the day when we would get the majority of our sales from people with an actual paycheque. So by the time we'd finished the last of our rounds, it was about 9PM and we had to head back to the office to get cashed out.
Starting later in the day at 11AM was great. Finishing at 9PM in the evening was not so great. And since everybody I know has the decent, normal working hours of 9AM ro 5Pm or some variation thereof: About the only people I could have a social life with would be other salespeople. And that would be.... Odd. A party of only salespeople because nobody else could stay out that late and not be wasted for work the next day? The prospect was exceedingly creepy, no matter how interesting being friends with some people in the group would have been. On top of everything else, they normally worked a six day week which was not so hot with me. And even if the schedule was rather flexible (the amount of hours we worked for was entirely "voluntary") there was still the matter of ones pay being based entirely upon commission. And commission pay has a tendency to really lousy if you're A) not that good a salesman, B) up against people who REALLY didn't have any money on them, whatsoever or C) both. In my case it was consistently C). I improved trememdously in my oratory skills as my weeks worth of "marketing" work experience progressed, but I really didn't do any better in terms of sales. In fact, I did worse: Starting at 4 sales for the first day and then dribbling down to 1 on my last day. And on the last two days, I was introduced to salespeoples kinds worst fear: stray dogs and Maori children who chased you down asking for free movie tickets and why do you have such big eyes Mr. Funny Chinese Man? I think I found the Maori children to be the more evil and distracting of the two. At least the dogs can be destroyed for not having a leash. I'll probably have to go into therapy sometime for developing all these overwhelming, murderous (and sadly unfulfilled) fantasies against rude little Maori children with the social graces of a jungle animal that craps in its hand and eats its own droppings. At any rate, I reached my breaking point decidedly faster after all that, and retired early from my role in the breakthrough industry that was direct marketing. It was fun for a while, but doing that job on a permanent basis would have fried my synapses. And being cheerful all the time really, really, REALLY hurts. Like, ow. The muscles in my face for my "pleasant grimace" look still smart to this day.
So anyway. That was two months ago since I'd last had a job and I haven't really tried looking since then. I really should try harder but I'm afraid of getting into something equally as mentally scarring as the "direct sales" industry. On the otherhand, now that my brain has reminded me the consequences of not having a job for so long, I'm more afraid of being broke and stuck at home all the time because of it. Now that THAT fear has come to my attnetion, it's time to start looking for a job again. At Borders. For I will fill their emplyment applications folder with nothing but me until I get a job there. HURRAH! Soon I will have money in my pockets and a conveniently close location to spend it on! HURRAH! No, wait.... Dang. Well, that's the dream anyway. Now for it to come true.
Other things that have happened since last I wrote a proper entry.... I have a car. Yes, I have my own motor vehicle and a license that proves that I can drive! In between certain hours. Without passengers or with at least one passenger who's owned a full license for at least 3 years. And I can't travel at certain speeds. And my daddy was the one who bought it for me. But I have a car! So all the other negatives drop away like the flies that they are! Besides, I'll get my full license, sooner or later. Originally, I'd spied upon a Subaru Legacy as my mode of transport (besides being quite a spiffy looking white sportscar, it would have allowed me to spout any number of off colour Tokyo Babylon jokes) but after trying out a couple of blocks with it, it turned out to be a little bit more than I could handle, especially for someone quite new to the joy of driving such as I. So I finally settled on a Nissan Cephiro (for which I could make a number of allusions to Magic Knight Rayearth but couldn't really. Mainly because I haven't really seen enough of the show) which was a steal at 10K (oo-eer. More than what I earned for 8 whole months in McDs, anyway) and was a gentle, smooth old man car that was quite nicely unshocking in its response time and could possibly be used to troll for hookers due to its expansive backseat room. It's quite a large, reliable family man kind of car. Which is why I worry whenever I let Kunfei have the keys to it because he drives it like a rally vehicle. Silent screams are now a commonplace occurence whenever he gets behind the drivers seat. As to why I let him drive, I'd prefer to have someone who knows what he's doing behind the wheel of that rather nice car over someone who has less than a years experience. It IS my car, but I'm probably the one who drives it the least. Even my mother, who has her own golden shiny luxury Lexus and everything, drives it more often than I do. And whenever I take the car anywhere, bad things seem to happen to it. Like getting new scratches and scuff marks all over the wheelrims and bumpers. Or a 6 inch nail stuck directly into the tire. Or a tennis ball sized rusting indentation in the roof of the car. Or almost causing a side-on collision which would have killed me instantly if I hadn't gunned my accelerator. I'm afraid of taking the car anywhere, considering my horrendously bad luck. In fact, I make a point not to wash the car to purposely make it look old so people don't target it for keying. Course, I'd have done that anyway, cause I'm lazy, but that's a good reason too.
What else? Ooh yeah, there was the "Who Wants to be an Otaking?" competition at the Armageddon festival just last month, April 13th. After much work and planning (well, mainly work. most of the planning consisted of "let's do it this way and hope to god it works". Guess who was in charge of THAT one?) we got an interface for it not unlike the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" TV show, a way to display said interface on a big screen to an audience and the go ahead from Zeb and Bill (Armageddons organiser) to get people to compete in it as a semi-official event at Armageddon. For a first time production, I think we did pretty well. I acted as the emcee (of course. I'm such a star. Or at the very least an attention whore. The week I spent doing pitches as a salesman probably helped my confidence in speaking to large crowds a bit, too), Xavier acted as the guy behind the computer, Kunfei was the music man, Michael made sure we actually got the answers and questions correct and matched up (I was supposed to do a final check but we were working on a tight schedule and I was lazy) and Wong sorta just wandered around the room taking pictures. That was what was happening on the day. Before that day, however, we had a 12 hour session of inputting questions into a Powerpoint interface Xavier had thought up. So we were all rather proud of ourselves. Or at least I was proud of us. Admittedly, the big prizes we had in the end were a bit on the rushed side (we basically bought stuff we thought would be appreciated by anime fans at one of the stalls in Armageddon Cartoon Gallery) and we had a BIT of a problem about people not being able to answer questions pass the first one (we overestimated the fanbase in Auckland, we did. And the first seven questions were meant to be dead giveaways, for crying out loud!) as well as members of the audience crying out answers when they were not meant to.... But overall it went rather spectacularly and I'm quite happy we all made it to this point despite a whole number of setbacks that we had. And we get to do it all over again next year. Maybe. If I'm still here or people would still be interested in going ahead with the competition once I'm gone.
And ummmm.... I think that's about it, really. Oh, I've recently gotten into playing Magic - The Gathering. After years of avoiding it and never having a chance to learn how to, I've finally gotten to play one of the most addictive and expensive card games of all time. God help me. I don't think I'll mention getting into tabletop RPGing with Call of Cthulu. And yet I have. My social acceptancy rating drops further through the linoleum covered floor as I become even more of a singularity of raging nerdfests. Anime, gaming and now Magic and RPGs have been thrown into the mix. Who knows how low I'll go! One thing's for certain however: One day I will murder Kunfei and Wong horribly for getting me And Xavier into the whole Magic scene.... Before they managed to drag everybody else in for the ride, as well. Now EVERYBODY in the club knows how to or is playing the game. Even Zeb. And Zeb's not the kind to indulge in these nerdy nerdfests like the rest of us. I'd feel ashamed, but I'm just too ecstatic at some of the really awesome cards I got that makes me so cool!
.... Okay, now I'm ashamed. Bad, BAD Edwyn. Magic cards do not make you cool! Nor do they make you immediately more attractive to the opposite sex! I think I'll end my entry here before I begin listing the virtues of being an unwashed anime watching, Magic playing virgin for the rest of my life.
