My Seventeenth Job

No, I wasn't in the olympics. I worked security for the 2002 Olympics. I worked 12 hours a night for 18 days in a row. That sucks the life right out of you. You would think that with the overtime, that I would have been rolling in dough, but I make more now. I had to sit in the Hallmark Pavilion overnight to make sure that the heater in the trailer with the snow globes did not turn off. They were afraid that the snow globes would freeze and break if the heater turned off. Of course, snow globes usually have a chemical in them to keep from freezing, but I wasn't going to tell them that. It was cold, but I managed to sleep for a couple hours every night. I was the worst security guard ever. I got to sit where Kristi Yamaguchi sat and signed autographs and I got to throw away her lipstick stained coffee cup. That really was the highlight of my life for about a week.

My Sixteenth Job

I worked at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center in the Pulmonary Division as a Faculty/Clinic/Academic Coordinator. Wow, that's a mouthful. This was a really good job with two problems. First, it didn't really pay very well, but the benefits were good. Second, I worked in an office with a very annoying woman that spent her days chatting online on LDS singles chats. She drove me crazy.

The head of the division was a genius that didn't believe in a lot of support staff. Basically, it meant that there was me, the annoying woman and an Administrative Manager to run the whole division of a lot of doctors. It kept me busy and the doctors were all really nice. I lucked out there. It turns out that Pulmonary doctors are the nicest of any type of doctors. Neurologists and Cardiologist tend to have god complexes. GI doctors tend to be very money conscious and would sell their grandmother for profit. I never knew that doctors' personalities could be divided by what their specialty was, but you learn something new ever day.

My Fifteenth Job

I-link was a horrible job, too. It was a small company that offered long distance services through individual salesmen that then try to get more salesmen under them. In my training, they kept insisting that it wasn't a pyramid scheme. It was. Modified pyramid schemes are completely legal in Utah. I started answering the phones and helping people with long distance service. I then became the evening supervisor and then the day supervisor. At this point, I fired a couple of people. They were warned not to call each other while at work, but they kept doing it. I was mad because everyone else was going through hell and they would talk to each other on the phone all day about how great the mormon church was. On top of that, they knew that we could listen in to their conversations. So, they were idiots as well as lazy. I don't know if I had the same situation today if I would have fired them. Probably, they were pretty bad. This is where I met demridawn, who has a few choice words about I-Link.

I then became the wholesale account manager. I worked with companies that bought long distance from us that were not part of the pyramid scheme. It was horribly disorganized and everyone that I went to for demands from the wholesale accounts had the last name of Edwards. The owner's last name was, you guessed it, Edwards. I learned that the "Edwards" referred to me as "the queer" behind my back. That didn't really bother me, but I knew advancement was not going to be possible. On top of that, the company was going to crash and burn. It was clear. And on top of that, I was suicidal every Sunday night because I knew I had to go to work the next day. Quitting this job was really one of the best things I ever did.

My Fourteenth Job

It really wasn't Direct TV that I worked for. I worked for a company that did customer service for Direct TV. This was really my first taste of how horrible a corporation could be. When I was hired, I asked if it was incoming or outgoing calls. They assured me that it was incoming only. I told them that I would only do incoming calls. They said fine.

Now, to get to work, you had to park a mile away and take a shuttle in. You had a small window of time to clock in. When you were on the phone, the second someone would hang up, there would be a beep and the next call was put through. That's fine, but you weren't allowed more than the standard 1 hour total of breaks for the day. In other words, you couldn't use the bathroom unless it was an emergency. So, it was constant calls. They also just raised their prices, so it was a solid 8 hours of people yelling at me for something I had nothing to do with or had no control over. I don't know why they think yelling at a customer service representative would help, but they tried. (Interesting side note, it didn't help. They never lowered their prices again. So, don't bother calling). This was all fine. I could handle all of that.

One day, they took my team and said that they were going to make it a collections team. In other words, outgoing collections calls. It was horrible. I hated collections and as soon as you were off a call you were to call another person. We were required to make quotas and the person with the highest calls would get a prize like a bar of "Dial" Soap for "dialing" the most. Isn't that fun? In other words, you made the company the most money in the hell of a crappy job, here's a bar of soap. I requested to be taken off of the collections team saying that I was told I wouldn't have to do outgoing calls. They refused saying that I didn't have anything in writing. I wrote an angry but intelligently written letter, suggesting that they would keep a valuable employee by simply keeping their word. I delivered it and never got a response. Goodbye Direct TV.

My Thirteenth Job

Coming back to Japan, I decided to settle in Salt Lake City. I had a group of friends there already, all in one place and I was familiar with the area. I needed a job fast, so I went through a temp agency.

I worked for Lab Corps (at least I think that was the name). It was just a room with tons and tons of boxes. All I did all day was go into specific boxes looking for specific lab reports. That's it. Not very efficient on their part if you ask me, but it was a job. They asked me to go full time when I finally did leave because I showed initiative by suggesting changes to their system. No thank you, I was ready to try another horrible job.

My Twelveth Job

This picture really reminds me of the feel of Sapporo.  (Link missing.  It was probably of a lot of snow).

I taught English in Japan for almost two years. I tried to get a job before I went, but everywhere insisted that I come to Japan first. So, I flew in without a job and without speaking a word of Japanese. It was relatively easy and I got a job at EC, Inc. EC stands for "English Circles". Training was by this jerk from Canada who made it his personal mission to make every trainee cry before training was over. I never cried and I think that made him harder on me than a lot of teachers. Word of how he treated me traveled all over Sapporo and when he quit to find another job, no place would hire him. Such a perfect example of Karma.

It really was a lot of fun and very interesting. I learned Japanese a little, which I have now all forgotten. One problem though was that they fired a couple of guys while in training for being gay.

The snow in Sapporo is amazingly deep. The siberian winds come down over the Sea of Japan and really cool of the place. It would be a lot better if they didn't have such inefficient heating. I had a little kerosene heater that I would have to keep filled. Ever so often a little alarm would go off to remind you to open a window to let out the fumes. It really seemed to defeat the purpose of heating the room in the first place. Their water heaters, however, are the most efficient things I have ever seen. You never run out of hot water, because it heats it as it goes through.

I met the top drag queen of Japan. She was one of my students. Yep, "she". She was a cute little lesbian with the drag name of Luciano. It was a real Victor/Victoria situation. She was pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. I was told to keep it secret. I also participated in the first ever gay and lesbian parade in Sapporo. It was pretty sparse. Drag queens were in the back of pick up trucks with a boom box. Perhaps 75 people showed up and there were very few spectators and even less spectators that knew of the parade.



The sign says "Mother, your son is gay". It was from the parade.  (Another link missing.  I look great though).

Looking for a new job.

I'm taking time off. Well actually, I have Monday-Friday off this week and next week. I've used up all of my vacation. I just wanted to find another job and "live" during the day. I'm sick of working nights and going to bed at 5:00 AM. The closest I've gotten to a job is being a management trainee at Radio Shack, ugh. I've tried to get ahold of job counseling services that charge a fee, but none of them will give me a call. Am I that bad? Ugh. I'm not going to be a dealer much longer, damn it.