Saturday, September 08, 2012

Deep Down In It

It's rainy and blah in Frog Pond Holler today, which is okie-fine by me. I have no plans to leave the house. Lola B. is running amok in the master bath (I still can't call it my bathroom.. or my bedroom, working on that) tossing bottle caps in the air them hopping away from them with wild abandon when they hit the floor. She's like a little bunny bomb squad. Ayla is outside, laying upside down in her dog house, all you can see is her legs up in the air, kinda spread eagle, airing her bits. She won't come in, she's pouting because I put her back outside at the butt crack of dawn so I could go back to sleep for a little while. I call her to come back in and she just glares at me.

 You can't leave her unattended once she's up. She's a big, hairy toddler with ADD. With the other dogs, I just bribe them to come snooze with me, but Ayla isn't allowed in the bedroom anymore. She's discovered that if she aims just right, she can plow head first through the hardware mesh reinforced screen door and scare the living bejeezus out of Lola, a trick she's performed about three times so far.

I honestly don't think she'd intentionally hurt her, she just stands there and cries and tap dances when she sees her, but she's so big and hyper and you can scare a bunny to death.

The other two old man pups don't pay the bunny any mind. The cat couldn't care less.

My number one priority right now is finding a second source of income. I've applied to about five different "work at home" customer service places. One is a concierge service, where travelers call in for information on restaurants, nearest entertainment, etc. It's like you're their private Googler. Or Garcia on "Criminal Minds," without the sexy FBI agents calling you babyguuurl.  I'm not sure if I'll qualify for that one though. While they require a minimum of a G.E.D., they'd prefer someone with a degree. (Really? To look shit up on Google? Yes really.) The others are general customer service entry level positions. They pay the minimum wage for your state for training, then start at around $9 an hour, depending on the client you work for. They all offer incentive bonus' and the only one I've interviewed for so far has had insurance, paid time off and 401K for full time employees. Unfortunately, they didn't have any part time hours available.

Oh yeah, and I accidentally hung up in the middle of the interview. It was a conference call with 10 applicants and when it was my turn to give my little 2 minute speech on why I'd be a super duper customer service chicky, I hit the wrong button. Luckily, we were logged on in chat too, so I swallowed my pride and asked for the number again. I was given another chance and when it was all said and done, they said I was in and offered me a job, but I had to turn it down because of the hours.

In the meantime, I've been doing HIT work (human intelligence tasks) on Amazon Mechanical Turks. A good paying HIT pays about a nickel each for short tasks that take a minute or less to complete. You have to sit at your computer and beat hell out of your keyboard and mouse for an hour to come even close to minimum wage, but it's something. Last night I did 100 transcriptions of 10 second audio clips of Madame SomeFlakeyShit doing a trance reading. She talked really slow, so I lucked out.

I swore I'd never do those again, but I'm desperate. I had to suck $10 our of my savings the other day to make up the difference in checking to make the house payment and it's still another week till payday rolls around again. So, the remaining $13 in savings is all I have. Period.

I'm not worried, I know I'll find something and we have plenty of food in the house and gas in the truck.. if I don't go anywhere but to work.. to last. The Amazon is stressing out I think, but she's young and life is still kinda scary. I'm used to scraping by and I'll make it. She'll see that it all works out in the end. You just gotta keep swimming.

This might sound weird, but there's a sense of accomplishment when you've gotten through a particularly tight time unscathed. It's like... Survivor: Trailer Trash Island! When you've only got odds and ends in the pantry, it's an opportunity to go on the innerwebs and find new recipes. It's when you really learn to prioritize and get your ducks in a row. Everyone should have to make a tight squeeze ever so often. That's when the good stuff rises to the top.

Look at that. I was all deep and crap. See?

Heh.

Ya'll have a good one. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

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5 comments:

tiff said...

Y'know, I might just have to go earring shopping this weekend. :)

I agree with the 'surviving tough times' notion. It's scary as heck when you're going though it, but something always does show up it seems.

kenju said...

Hang in there, Mahala, we're pulling for ya.

Mahala said...

I know ya are.. and that's what keeps me going :)

Celia said...

It'll be nice to get to the "looking back on how we made it," stage. Meanwhile wish you the best luck with your job search. Too much of this going on right now.

BetteJo said...

That scrambling stuff sucks! I remember sending my son to the grocery store to pour a bag of coins into one of those machines so I could have a little cash for bills. UGH. Thank God you're more creative than I am!