With yet another series of expensive car fixes on the way, I have not reacted to my parents' latest overture to look for a "real" job with as much ire as I have in the past. You know, it is getting a bit tiresome to get all these fat checks where I can see the financial rewards of putting in overtime (I was able to pull in the maximum 53 1/2 hours my last full week at the test scoring place), only to see the checking account I put it in shrink as soon as I raise it because of huge expenses -- car repairs, going out to eat, sexytime with strippers, etc.
Getting a full-time job should alleviate that. I think (I don't know for sure; hey, that ignorance of information is what you get for being a temp all your life) that the salary they give you won't be just better than the hourly wage I get (which, by the way, has stepped up within the past year, something for which I truly am grateful) but exponentially better. Plus, full-time jobs give you benefits, like paid time off, health insurance and 401(k), so you're getting paid beyond exponentially better. That would be really good.
Trouble is getting one. Motivation is always going to be an obstacle for me. As much as it continues to stunt my ability to make a nestegg, I still like being a temp because it prevents making my work part of my life. So what if I don't take my current job seriously? I'm just a temp. I could be fired, I could walk away -- doesn't matter, I'm just a temp. Getting a full-time job is a commitment that I'm still very reluctant to strive to. And even if I do try to look for one, I think I'm vastly unqualified from getting one. All these good-paying jobs demand work experience or a degree in the right field and at a level beyond my bachelor's. Applying, then, would be futile. I would have to go back to school to get the right degree, and we're back to all that shit again about going back to school.
Still, two things cause me to write about this subject. First one is the latest stuff from My Father: Two local giant companies, United Health and Medtronic, are hiring, at least according to him. Normally I would just nod my head and say, "I'll get to it." But this time around I asked him to get the website for those two companies for me to look up, even though I could probably Google the sites myself. He doesn't have Medtronic's yet, but he did get me the URL for United Health, and I actually did get to it -- just now ... where it looks like there is nothing available right now. They asked me over dinner last (Saturday) night whether I looked at it yet and I lied to them and said I have already applied. I should have told them the truth instead.
I may have said this before, but if I haven't, I'll say it now. I don't know if I will ever take my parents', in particular My Father's, advice on anything, let alone jobs. But the fact that they still ask me and advise me and tell me that so-and-so company is hiring, after years of me rebuffing their recommendations, is ... heartening to me. Why? Because it means they haven't given up on me yet. Now, they may be giving me advice because they want me out of the house. Either way, I think I would notice if they gave up and no longer told me about jobs that might crop up, and I would feel very regretful that I wore them down into complete hopelessness for their son's future.
The other thing comes from the woman who I am in contact with about our alumni club's big shindig this summer. Over messaging on Facebook yesterday (Saturday) morning we batted around ideas about the party. She said that I and the Vice-President should come over to see the place before we give an official OK. As to when in the next couple months we could do it, she told me that she'll be out in Los Angeles one particular weekend to see her brother graduate. And then she gave me the details: He decided to quit not only his job but his career, go back to school and become a doctor.
This is the most astonishing thing: He went back to school at the age of 44, stayed in school for six years, and, apparently, has a position lined up after he graduates in a few months. At 50.
Great, that blows my, "I'm too old to go back to school" defense out of the water. Nevertheless inertia is a hell of a thing to overcome, so in my mind I'm still thinking, "I'm too old to go back to school."
Do I risk staying the way I am, or do I change into something I might not want to be?
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