peak bagel, back in the saddle

I lost/quit my job at the bagel bakery.

On Wednesday, my Uncle Mike had a heart attack, he died in hospital Sunday. I arrived at Aunt Carol's house Saturday, borrowed her car to work Sunday morning, came back to Beavertron, went to the airport, went to hospital. An hour after his passing, on three hours of sleep in the past forty8, I called my boss to tell him I was bereaved and not coming in to work at two the next morning, or at five on Tuesday. He basically said no. He said I was scheduled to work and he didn't know what he was going to do if I didn't come in. I told him I could probably come back by Wednesday. Then, my boss brought up the time nearly a month ago when I called in sick and missed two days (and a concert that I was planning on going to on my day off) because I had the flu and didn't get out of bed for nearly seventy-two hours. "Someone died Jeffrey. I was very close to him and I am going to be with my family right now." He said I should call Johnny, the guy who writes the schedule and was on vacation for a few days, so calling him would have been useless. I slept just awful that night and was glad I decided not to go to work at two. Monday, I borrowed Aunt Carol's car again and came home for a couple hours. While I was gone, she went through the clothes the hospital gave her that Uncle Mike was wearing at the time of his heart attack. She found a small tin filled with a white powder, and suddenly everything got worse.
Aunt Carol was devastated by this, and Mike's sister Susie, whom came in from Nevada and was staying at Aunt Carol's, was equally shocked. I called Jeffrey, my boss, that afternoon with the intention of saying it would be a couple days before I could be back, but it sort of came out that I wasn't going to be returning because things got complicated. I left him a message and I still haven't heard word back from the bakery. I will go in next week, Thursday, to get my last paycheck, and hopefully not talk to him. But if he is there and I do, I'm going to say, "No wonder your father never loved you."

So I'm once again heartily on the prowl for employment, or means to pay the bills.

standing up mr gay portland

I met a guy online, and we talked on the phone a few times and worked our schedules to hang out on Sunday. Unfortunately, this was the day my phone service was in transition, and my new phone that I got from my roommates didn't have the charger because they were out of town. So when he called me it went straight to voicemail. I was going to send him a myspace message to let him know, and got distracted by checking him out and actually reading some of his profile. Turns out he won some pageant and became Mr Gay Portland, and he works for the government. Uh... no thanks.

dear life, you suck so much sometimes

Last Tuesday night, I was drinking and sent a message to a random hottie on facebook. Two days later, while making bagels at work, he showed up (there's no way he would know where I work) for his first day. He was working in the front cafe part and there was really no reason for me to talk to him, since I work in the back bakery part. But, he's transferring to the bakery starting next week, so I'll end up working with him, possibly training him. I sent him another message saying I hope things don't get awkward. I don't think he's seen either of them, yet.
The funny thing was that my coworker and I spent the whole morning telling stories of past loves and cardinal rules of relationships, such as: Never ever date a coworker! It wasn't until the last hour that I realized what was happening, and then I was pretty hysterical with laughing and making incomprehensible comments about "real life."

garfield

After two solid months of corresponding via email, phone, and having been stood up for a scheduled meeting once (seriously, in the email sent to me afterwards she said that it was great that I met the receptionist, obviously forgetting that she was given my information from the executive director) , I finally met with the volunteer coordinator of a prominent environmental non-profit. The meeting was brief, we set a shift on Monday for me to come in each week and donate my time, and then she toured me around the office and introduced me. "This is Ben, he'll be volunteering with us."
"Oh! You're Dan and Jeanne's son, aren't they just fantastic?"
"Uh, yea they're alright I guess." I'm reasonably apprehensive of this all. To complicate matters, when I came in for my first actual stint, I realized that my time is going to be wasted here. It is not an internship nor an apprenticeship and apart from my initial tour, the only person I will deal with is the volunteer coordinator, so I am not establishing much of a network either. The work that I'm doing, also, is brainless and menial, data entry mostly.
A further annoyance about this was that I missed a shift that I didn't know I was working at the bakery. Upon getting back from my delivery route, I was preparing to bicycle home and they told me I was scheduled to keep working and I had no idea. I got it covered, and now have Mondays off at the bakery as a result. They were pretty understanding, the boss said, "If this is your dream then do not give up. For me, I will have bagel kingdom!"

pot dealer

...I am not.
Yesterday I missed work and received my "final warming." Shitty that if my alarm doesn't go off at one in the morning I won't wake up until after my whole shift is over. So, in an effort to pay off some debt that I owe to friends, I took a course about how to deal pot. My roommates, other friends, and even some family have been telling me recently that the best drug dealer is one who doesn't do them. This really makes zero sense to me, how could I sell pot if I never have any? How do you meet stoners when you don't get stoned? The only way I could see doing this would be to have a client base handed over to me. Anyways, my drug dealer friend gave me some (a lot, really) of instructions about it. He has just recently moved to Ptown and is always trying to exploit my social capital and get me to deal for him. Figuring that I'll be fired from making bagels soon and will need some income, I took him up on this and got the Stumptown marijuana training. It took nearly two hours and was a real big waste of both his and my time. He used a chalkboard and told me about the differences between Indica and Sativa, between genotypes and phenotypes, the history of cultivation and hybridization, and all this information that I thought was useless to sell pot. I mean, if it gets you high right? Wrong.
The hands on portion of the training was just as fruitless. He sells three kinds of pot, each of varying quality and price and flavor: Pineapple, Train wreck, and Pitbull. He pulled them out of their respective jars and I studied them for the test. Apparently, besides phenotypes, the best way to differentiate pot plants, is by the smell, if you aren't going to smoke it. This, among other very good reasons, is why I can never be a pot dealer: I don't smell. When it was time for the test (yes, he tested me), I couldn't tell which buds were which varietal. Whatever, we moved on, this was a minor obstacle as long as I could figure out a way to tell them apart, like labeling the jars they were in.
The next part of the training was role playing. Now, salesman I am not, and long story short, I didn't make the sale. I won't be dealing pot anytime soon.

bagel baker

Success! I started a new job on Tuesday making bagels and delivering them early early in the morning. It isn't really such a success though because the only way I was able to get my foot in the door was through my roommate who recommended me after working there only three weeks and quitting, which is about as long as anybody else has worked there. He's only been open for a year, and there is only one person still employed after that much time. The turnover rate is high because, as nearly everyone who works there has been eager to tell me, "the boss is really crazy." When I met him for my interview he was quick to tell me about the times he has fired three quarters of the crew for no apparent reason. He said I could stay working there as long as I did a good job (duh) and didn't talk to much. "I fire so many for talk too much." There are notes posted all over the place about the talking rule, but so far he seems a pretty standard boss.
I'm pretty surprised at how much I like the job. The hours are awful, starting at five sometimes. Tomorrow I have to be there by two in the morning. The coworkers are noticeably frazzled by the hours, which is entertaining. I get to bring home six bagels per shift, which is thirty-six servings of bread for the roommates and I to consume. And truth be told, I secretly hate bagels. But I'll probably get fired for talking anyways.

carbon footprint

I've been getting myself really down recently because of my carbon footprint. When I first calculated it a few years ago in the Eugene it was around 6 earths, in Oakland I had it down to 1.2, but here in Ptown it's at 2.8 with certain destructive choices that I can't help but make because of finances. Even after calculating it with my ideal choices, like buying all local foods and going vegan and never being in a car, it was still at 1.8 earths! The problem is my housing, which I don't really see as being a choice I can make. Somehow, the infrastructure of society here has been designed to be institutionally destructive. So by the mere fact of my existence, I am actively (and consciously now) making my future worse. That's quite a load to bear everyday, filled with anxiety about the future.