I Feel Lost

[evolutionmovement]

This sucks. I just missed a $22-30/hr. job I'd be perfect for with my old company and there's nothing else around. I just finished my second novel, which is bittersweet as I don't know what the hell to do now. I still can't fix my rear suspension since there was some shipping mix up on a part from subaruparts.com, so I don't want to drive my car. I could start the book, Embarrass your Boyfriend - a Woman's Guide to How Cars Work, but I don't have a good place to take pictures of engine parts for illustrations and it's not what I feel like writing. I suppose I could start on my pirate book or the one about a Roman Centurion who gets stuck behind enemy lines and comes home to find his best friend with his wife, but I don't feel like doing the research right now - I want to write. I'm not ready to write the third installment of the Dante Trilogy since it's semi-autobiographical and so echoes my life and I'm only at the level of the character in the second novel right now.

The car needs some exhaust work now (muffler), could use some wheels (bent), I'd like to progress on the performance project, and the fuel sender crapped out so it's old VW style for me now in terms of fuel level.

I can't drive, write, or find a woman with no friggin' money and I don't take the ASE tests until August and without proven experience I'm not sure how much it'll help me anyway. I've been working for my mechanic here and there, but he's not busy enough.

I almost wish I had the opportunity to do the illegal stuff my character does in the novels as at least I'd have something to do and no concern for money. I can't even afford to print the damn novel up for waiting friends!

Just had to vent a little, thanks.

Steve

[BAC5.2]

Man, here's what you gotta do.

Pimp up, go out with some friends and go to a bar. Get buzzed, scam on women, see what you can get done.

Enjoy it while you can. Worry about writing and the car tomorrow. Live it up tonight.

How did you miss a job? Did you sleep in?

[evolutionmovement]

No, some monkey took it. I saw the posting too late. I don't have any friends (all friggin' married) to go drinking with and I can't afford it anyway as I don't know how long I'll be barely employed or if I'll have to work full time at a job that still can't pay my monthly bills (like a grocery store or whatever I can just to have money coming in). You need like 5 yrs experience to push a broom around here. I always do poorly in bars, anyway, and clubs are too expensive and even harder to get someone to go with.

Steve

[THAWA]

As much as I disagree with what I'm about to say, just get any job no matter how much you don't like it so you have one less thing to worry about.

[evolutionmovement]

That's what it looks like I'll have to do, but I'll probably still have to worry as most jobs are less than the minimum $11/hr I need to get by without taking from my thankfully foresighted savings. Worse part will be if I have to deal with customers. I'd be much more comfortable killing people for a living. In fact I was just sitting here picturing myself throwing a ball around in the park with a son if things had been different. I determined that I'd rather have a tour in Iraq. I wasn't manufactured for normal people stuff. But I don't want to kill Iraqis - I want to whack child molesters and rapists. That's my fantasy job, but I'll settle for landscaping or something.

Steve

[THAWA]

you should check out being a handler for ups/fedex/those type of jobs. They start at like 12/hr. Or you could do nightstocking at a warehouse, that's usually at least 10/hr. Maybe get two jobs or soemething?

[evolutionmovement]

UPS is tough to get out here, though the grocery store down the street has night crew. That's my last choice job. I have valuable experience in manufacturing, quality, maintenance, and design - I shouldn't have to be scraping the barrel like this and it kind of ticks me off.

Steve

[THAWA]

You think you feel bad? I was reading at the 3rd grade level in kindergarten. I was in GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) all through 6th grade. I was asked to go to a better school or skip ahead a grade. I started in the HA (High Achievers) program at my middle school, bout half way through I got lazy and dropped out of that. I was doing some of the IB (International Bacalareutte(cant spell that)) classes at high school, but again got lazy. The lowest grade I've ever gotten on any test that I can remember was a 63% or something, I've only really studied for two test in my whole life and that 63% was the absolute lowest, most were in the b-a range. I have the IQ and talent to go to stanford or MIT or something. Yet I'm a junior college drop out working at jiffy lube. People I KNOW are not as bright as me are doing better than me, how do you think I feel?

[greg donovan]

wow writing is not easy thats really cool. if you didnt hate dealing w/people so much i would suggest waiting tables. that will more than likely put you very close to the 11/hr mark. i have a degree in political science w/a minir in econ. and i work as a waiter at the local olive garden. why? so i can be home more to take care of my kids. but i do want to do something different soon. thought about going back to school to try my hand at auto service. but not sure. thats just another 10k in debt. and 2 yrs of my life. so who knows.

[Tleg93]

It seems a common story these days. I feel that I'm also capable of a great deal more than what I'm currently doing, which is creating and handling machine operator's preventive maintenance routines. It's dull, to say the least, especially considering I have two degrees, a bachelors and an associates, both degrees are in the electronics engineering field with one being in computer automation. So, I'm bummed about being underemployed although it could be worse. Messing around in SAP is a real drag.

[entirelyturbo]

This kinda encourages me to stay in college a bit.

I was probably one of the better students to ever attend my high school (it was a private school too!), every year I won a big award for something: Freshman, I was Freshman of the Year. Sophomore, I was Creative Writer of the Year. Junior, I was Foreign Language Student of the Year. Senior, I was Science Student of the Year, and I was Valedictorian of my senior class (by .003 GPA points, but still ).

Then I go to college, fail two classes in one semester, lose my scholarship that paid 75% tuition, and my GPA is now in the 2.4 area. It's a combination of all these things:
1) I lost my mother 2 weeks before graduation, went through a subconscious state of depression
2) I started modding my car/started caring more about my car than school
3) I got more independent and wanted to spend more time socializing, etc.
4) I got lazy

I can't say for sure, but I think I finally woke up in the middle of last semester. I just started studying all of a sudden, was really getting good grades on quizzes and stuff. It's like I realized that if I don't do this now, I'll end up just like the losers I work with now, and will have nothing but regrets later at throwing away the only opportunity of a college education that anyone in my family has ever had. But I had already ruined my chances at getting any good grades, so I still had mediocre grades last semester, I've gone a whole year now without scholarship.

I expect to do very well on my Calc test tomorrow, because I'm pretty clear on what's going on, all my HW is caught up, etc. etc. The same Calc class that I dropped my 1st semester my freshman year and the one I failed my 2nd semester freshman year.

I have a pretty well thought-out plan for the rest of the year, as far as self-improvement goes. I need to: get my Legacy to the pretty much perfect point, where I can just drive it, enjoy driving it, and do just regular maintenance on it. That consists of: getting the top-end paint job I want for it, getting the GR2's, replacing the cam seals, stopping all oil leaks, and that's it. The XT, I'm not sure about yet, that car has me a little PO'ed right now . I am going to redo my house, get rid of the hand-me-down furniture, old 80's green carpet, etc. etc. Get a new wardrobe, I DESPERATELY need one , and get my GPA above 3.0, keep it there, and sail on my reacquired scholarship until I get my 4-year degree in Journalism

Which is a good major coz I just wrote a damn novel

[Tleg93]

You just wrote a novel, congrats! What is it about? I did well in school. My avg wasn't that high (2.9) cuz I struggled in calc a bit. It's all my fault really, I just got lazy. I always got hung up on those darn diff eq's. The concept isn't hard. I would get messed up when oing integration in the exponent and partial fraction expansion with multiple variables is fun too.

I always did extremely well in liberal arts classes like speech, history, politics, and creative writing. I used to be journalism major too. Sometimes I think I went down the wrong road with engineering. It doesn't seem that it's panning out for me. I have been considering finishing my journalism degree with a minor in technical writing but it's hard to find a school that offers the two. It would be nice to have another shot at it now that I've gained some wisdom and am through with partying.

Yeah, it gets me motivated to hear other peoples stories.

[isotopeman]

You don't have to go to bars or clubs to get out. I don't know what's available where you live, but I find it nice to get out on my bike or just take a book to get some coffee.
I've found that it's much easier to lower expenses than increase my income without handing my life over by spending it working. I now get by with working 15-20 hours a week and love it. It didn't mean giving up things though, but paying attention to what things cost - even how I make my coffee in the morning. (I now use a Bodum press)
Good luck and make the most of the time while you can!

[Tleg93]

One can make excellent coffee with those presses, I think. A guy here makes this tasty Jamacian coffee with one of those in the morning. It's hard to go back to the ordinary coffee once you've had the good stuff.

[evolutionmovement]

I appreciate all the stories, guys. Yeah, I live in a nice area so I kayak and ride around here, but that doesn't help me with women at all. And I'm an expert on living cheap. In school I would eat one Ramen noodle packet a day, maybe 2 so I could live off $5/wk. The rest I needed for design projects, but that wasn't enough. I eat bulk hot dogs and other cheap food from BJs and drink water. I haven't bought anything but stuff my car needs and ASE books for a few months. Oh I have bought a couple car magazines and one used CD. Its the reason I have money in the bank and am not looking at being homeless. But there goes the money for a house where the median price is over $300k.

Steve

[Brat4by4]

get hired at burger king. completely do a good job and open/close, get into management, etc... looks good on the resume: managerial experience in the restaurant industry, intimate knowledge of day to day procedures, and on and on

[georryan]

When your poor and not making any money, it is amazing how far 200 bucks can take you if your are really contientious how you spend.

I've fought with the unemployment world fresh out of college, and I know what it is like to scrape from paycheck to every other paycheck. hehe

I paid all my insurance, rent, food, household utilitiles, fun spending money, and gas in college. I had help every once in a while, but not very often. Somehow, the money was always there when I needed it.

That being said, when looking for a job I didn't want to take temporary work to get me by. I even turned down job opportunities that I thought would under pay me or weren't specifically in my career field. I was trying to get a job that I wanted, and I had the rescources to wait for a while. When my rescources started getting slim, I realized that at some point, you just have to step out. It isn't a choice anymore as much as a necessity. I ended up going to a temp agency and was fully ready to sweep construction sites. At some point, you just have to make a step just to do oit. Sometimes our choices can suck, but we always have to at least take the initiative to do something. Life isn't going to just hand us money as much as we wish it would.

[Tleg93]

No doubt, life is a struggle, even a hell at times. I've had a temp job for two years. I've applied for about four jobs within the company and haven't had much luck. Anymore, I just keep looking and hoping I'll get the right job.

[evolutionmovement]

I don't think long-term Burger King is necessary. I have good money skills that were serving me well until the company packed up to Malaysia. I just need something for a few months until I take the ASE tests and can hopefully get my foot in at a dealer or at least somewhere I can get by for a couple years to get the ASE certificate and then move to a dealership (there's 2 parts to ASE certification; a written test and at least 2 yrs experience). A lot of what I've done at my last job should help me well with automotive - a lot of electronic diagnostics, calibration, and repair of pneumatic, mechanical, and electronic systems in high precision PC card assembly machines as well as programming and operating a milling machine, prototyping new products, process engineering, etc.

Steve

[Tleg93]

What was your last job like? It sounds like you were a engineer or maybe a sr. maint mech. A couple of the things you mentioned are jobs in and of themselves like the process engineering. Did you work with surface mount machines or wave solder machines?

[evolutionmovement]

Mostly SMT, but I also rebuilt, ran, trained people on, and designed a registering system for moving from one PCB on another when in panel form for a wave solder machine. We made vrm's that had through-hole connectors. I fixed all the machines, adapted new products to the line, some process issues, prototypes, helped design product for engineering (they had no clue how to design for manufactureablitity nor real-world application failures, ie. someone drops the USB stick). Never even heard of SMT until I got there. We used Philips Gem machines for pick & place as we were a low-volume, high mix, custom order product site specializing in rapid product changeover.

Steve

[Tleg93]

Wow, that pretty interesting. When I worked as a tech in a circuit assembly plant all I pretty much did was troubleshoot test failures, train test operators, write test procedures and ocassionally help build test jigs. They wouldn't let us solder or work on machines. I'm sure you know best but why not continue to look for work along those lines? Process engineers are usually in high demand.

[evolutionmovement]

Usually in high demand, but even being surrounded by the east coast tech sector with Raytheon and other assorted companies around there's not much for jobs. I'd really like a career change to something I like if I could, too. I'm getting sick of trying to find a new job because wherever I go seems to relocate elsewhere. It would be difficult for a dealership to outsource service to Asia. My boss never had me write procedures because he thought it was a waste of my time and he knew I hated it. He was pretty cool. I wasn't the only process engineer, I was like secondary to another guy who had more experience. The outdated and overworked machines we had kept me busy repairing them a lot of the time. No union so there was no problem with me on the floor - it started as a small company, but then got bought out.

Steve

[greg donovan]

i'd like to know more about your writing, please.

[evolutionmovement]

Are you in publishing? Now you're in for it as asking me about this is like asking me about cars. I'll try to keep it to the basics and leave the rest of the shit I put in open to interpretation - that's the advantage books have over movies, they are more open to interpretation so no two people read the same exact story. Please forgive me if I ramble.

I tried writing a novel several times to no avail. Driving cross country listening to a lot of Thrill Kill Kult, I started to develop a screenplay in my mind about serial killers in the desert with a campy sixties road-movie feel. I noticed the driver becoming more like me as I developed the idea. Eventually I decided to do a different story where I was one of the main characters that answers the question I often asked myself: What if I had driven west after my fiancee dumped me until I ran out of road and given into my criminal tendencies along with a little help from fate?

I included some S&M, a cult that takes my views on what to do with society and twists them around to make a point about human corruption, sex, Subarus, music, a gay character inspired by what I saw in San Francisco, a hot woman inspired by my ex, characters inspired by people I worked with, and questions about the reality of freedom.

The point is for me to show my own progress as a person. The main character, Dante Moretti, starts out as an angry guy who uses his anger to squash the pain he feels inside over his past with his lost love and subsequent life as a hitman/security driver for an organized crime boss. The story starts after the crime boss is killed and he's presently a weapons transporter for the Evolution Movement cult that believes people are devolving and plan to overthrow society so they can rebuild it for the strong and enslave the weak. His girlfriend finds out some stuff the cult they're in is doing that the three main characters can't live with and they plan their escape while trying to get evidence to the FBI so they can do something about the terrorist-cult.

The second novel takes place three years later and Dante has gone legit. He has no stress or girlfriend and so his mind is free to attack him. The anger no longer has an outlet and so the inner sorrow now makes itself felt ever more frequently along with persistent nightmares. When he's pulled back in to help crack a renewed and more dangerous Evo Movement, he begins another journey of inner conflict where he hates people but still feels it's his mission to do whatever he can to help them in spite of it all. He also becomes aware of his own self-loathing and feelings of wasting his life, but doesn't know if he'll live long enough to resolve it or even if he wants to live anymore. He is also trying to come to terms with the fact that his own 'good luck' is actually intuition or maybe even something more.

The last instalment will be written when I've reached the same emotional state I want the character to have (and I hope I reach it). Though the situations may be fictional, there's more autobiography in it than fiction.

Anyway, I'll stop now.

Steve