Well, when I say "returned" I mean I looked randomly at my blogger site, saw I haven't done ANYTHING in about a year-and-a-half, and therefore decided to get up to speed as to what is going on.
When we last left our hero (me), it was my first post in about 2 months and I was complaining about grammar and my job. I was also on vacation, which seem weird because I haven't had a real vacation since. Plus, a lot has happened since that blog post. So, without further adieu...
THE EPIC RETURN TO BLOGGING FEATURING NATE-O!!!
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Was that a bit much? I wanted fireworks, a marching band and pie, but the budget ran out on the font.
So, what's been happening? Should we go chronological or categorical? Maybe a bit of both since I like to walk on the wild side. Rawr...
JOB:
I was fired from my job as production director at WMDH back in October of '09. My theory is that Ciatadel Broadcasting sucks balls and they needed to get rid of dead weight. What it came down to was they were paying me a full-time wage and benefits and figured they could save a crap-load of money by splitting my salary in two to pay two part-time people.
Am I bitter? Well, not as much as I was when it happened. I liked that job. It's what I went to college for. I was independent and loved it.
But, all we are is dust in the wind dudes. The universe was telling me to move on from the hick-towns of east-central Indiana. So I moved back to Indianapolis to begin a new search for employment.
At first, all I could find was Temp jobs. It was the middle of the economic crunch of 2009 and NOBODY could find steady work. A cashier job at Target got me through the holidays that year. However, when they moved me to the back stock room and had me get up at 4AM to move shit around... I could only take 2 days of that before my head almost exploded. So, I quit.
Do I regret quitting? HELL NO. I mean, the cashier stuff was cool, but they also had me bring in carts from outside. There were some days I thought I had been teleported to the Target in Antarctica. Fucking winter...
The back room was even worse. Aside from the INCREDIBLY early morning, the slight pay raise wasn't worth the atmosphere of moving crap around and then putting it back if it didn't go to the front of the store. It seemed like I was stagnating. Thankfully I figured that out before I got stuck there.
A month or three passed. I couldn't find anything that wasn't a bullshit sales job. Case in point, I interviewed (and was ultimately accepted for) a position at a place near the old airport. The pitch they gave about incentives and prizes was (obviously) very exciting and intriguing. So, I went back each time to learn more and more.
Then training began...
It was FUCKING VACUUM CLEANER SALES! You should've seen this thing. It was like NASA built this vacuum what with all the parts and procedures for putting it together. Stephen Hawking would think, "WTFuck?"
So I got the hell out of there before I even tried selling the damn thing. Thankfully, I was about to get something that would at least require my college-educated brain... ISTEP grading.
"But Nate-O, aren't those tests multiple guess and graded by computers?"
Au contraire my friends, there are indeed essays, short answers and long-form math problems that must be graded by human beings. I passed enough pre-screening stuff to come in and grade 7th grade essays.
Now, the idea is you don't necessarily grade content, you grade on overall structure and grammatical accuracy. Sounds easy right? Well, it took me a few days to get it down cold. And let me tell you, sitting at a computer for 7 hours reading these things is just below Chinese water torture. And I won't mention this but once, but I now think standardized testing is complete bullshit. Some of those kids need some real help...
Knowing that I wasn't going to be able to grade tests for forever, I began the search for a new job once again. Thankfully, an opportunity arose that charted the course towards my current job... Car Sales.
Yeah, I know, new and/or used car sales wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I went to college to be in the radio business. But trust me, I TRIED to get something in radio. I just couldn't find anything here in the city. So, I decided to give the car sales thing a shot.
Now the initial opportunity wasn't actually a job. It was a recruiting company that finds potential sales candidates for dealerships. I will admit I was a bit leery at first. "Where would I be working? Could I really sell cars? How much would I get paid? Am I going to take up smoking? How many divorces are in my future?"
Ok, I'm being a bit stereotypical there at the end. I apologize. However, I was genuinely concerned about how this all would turn out. So I went to these training sessions to get schooled on how to effectively sell cars. The ideas seemed sound, but I didn't find out until actual practice that not everything they teach you will help with every customer. Don't let people fool you, they are crafty these days.
I got my sales job at Tom Wood Toyota on the west side of Indianapolis. Took me two weeks on the floor to sell my first vehicle (a Jeep Cherokee). I ended up averaging about 8 cars sold per month. I figured that wasn't too bad for a beginner, but the money just wasn't happening.
I think what it comes down to is that... I'm not a salesman. Sure, I can relate to people and tell them all about how great a particular car is, but I can't be that cutthroat jerkoff salesman that ultimately sells cars. (Even just a little bit, which is all it takes sometimes. Just makes me feel like an asshole, which is more debilitating than anything else.)
So, I began searching for a new job. The detail manager at the dealership told me he was looking for someone to work back in clean-up. He said he would hire me right there because we were friends and that he knew I would be a good worker. I considered this for a little while, weighed the pros and cons, and decided it would probably be better than selling cars.
When he told the managers what I was considering, that's when my life got flipped turned upside down (so to speak). My boss told me he didn't want to waste my talents in the clean-up department. I had shown I had potential to do much more.
A few weeks earlier, the managers had the sales staff go out and write comments about particular vehicles. Drawing on my background of writing advertisements for radio, I used some of that to make my comments stand out. I really didn't think much of it at the time, I just wanted to have some fun with it.
Turns out, that was the kind of stuff my boss wanted to use for internet marketing. Two weeks later, I am Inventory Control. My job now consists of stocking-in used cars, taking those and trades through clean-up and service, taking pictures and writing comments of each car, uploading those to the internet and then printing off window stickers for the vehicles.
It's quite different than selling cars of course and I certainly like it better. Especially the hours, the pay and the fact that I get to keep all the benefits.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when I will gripe about the job, but I always am thankful that I at least HAVE a job.
Now I just have to move out of my parents' house...
HOUSING:
Yeah, that's right. I live in my parents' house. In the basement to be more specific. I've been there since I moved back from Muncie. I would complain more, but thankfully I don't have to spend as much time there because...
I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!!!:
Her name is Rebecca and we met online. Yep, it's the new thing. Our first date was Mini-Golf and Pizza in Broad Ripple where she lives. So, I tend to spend a good amount of time over at her place.
She's basically the best ever. Always supportive, funny and smart. I love her... SO FREAKIN' MUCH!!!
I'm 145% sure that if I hadn't been with Rebecca through all of the job stuff, my outlook on life would be WAY different. (More depression than anything else)
Who knows what the future will hold with the two of us. All I know is that it can only get better.
OTHER:
Here are a few more things that are new since I last wrote on TGM.
-New(ish) car: A 2001 Pontiac Sunfire. Bought it myself for a hell of a price from Rebecca's Mom. It's WAY better than the Cavalier.
-New shoes: Apparently, I have what's known as Plantar Fasciitis, which is an inflammation of the tendons that attach my heel to the front of my feet. Ouch, it still kinda sucks as of this post.
-New Computer: This is VERY recent. A new Sony Vaio laptop which runs laps around my old Thinkpad.
Well, that pretty much gets us up to date. I'm not sure if I'm really going to start blogging in earnest again. I don't usually have much to talk about these days except work. However, I'm sure I'll be back to talk about any other big things that might happen.
Until then, sayonara.
-Nate-O
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