Monday, April 16, 2012

Lost My Knitting Mojo

I haven't knit a comfortable stitch since January.  I've started and stopped numerous projects. Cast on scarves, shawls, sweaters, socks, blankets, and hats gotten a few rows, hell, a few stitches in and ripped them all back.  My hands shake as I knit.  My brain becomes numb.  I can feel my heart pound and my breath hitch as I try to make just one more stitch but to no avail.  Whether it's a few minutes work or a few hours I rip it all out, and those minutes, those hours I've spent knitting were painful.  My soul being sucked out of my body painful.  It's not a physical pain, fuck that I could deal with, it's a pain that's lodged somewhere between my heart, throat, and brain.  It's frustration and unshed tears.  It's that lump in your throat when you are so sad that crying isn't enough.  It's wanting to scream at the top of your lungs as you destroy everything around you pain.  For the past two and a half months I've felt that way, with no earthly idea as to why.  I smile for the benefit of those around me.  I pretend that I'm okay, but I'm not.  The smile I put on is brittle if they were to look closely they would be able to see the cracking edges of it, but I've mastered pushing people away.  I don't let them get too close because I don't think I can keep the screams inside if they brushed beside me.


I've lost my knitting mojo.  I'm gonna pretend that's why I feel this way.  So, I'm going to try to cast on again, knit a few rows, slowly a stitch at a time, and regardless of the pain I'm going to keep knitting until I have something, anything.  And stitch by stitch I'm going to let go.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Impending Job Loss

Why is it every time I remember I have a blog is when I'm unemployed or in this case impending unemployment?  Probably because it is only at times like these when I think I actually have time to sit down and type out anything at all whether or not worthwhile is still up in the air.  Damn I can't believe I haven't posted on here since November of 2009 that's almost three years ago.  I have a few things I actually want to ramble about, but first let's fill in the gaps since Turkey Day '09 to present day.  At the end of 2009, I was unemployed and desperately seeking some kind of job, any kind really, and I found it a few months later.  In 2010, I got a job working for the Census Bureau as one of the field supervisors.  Pretty good work, of course it didn't last long, but I was gainfully employed with the freaking federal government for about four months until June of 2010 when two things happened.  The first was that I crashed my car and completely wrecked it; I was okay, but that meant I had to borrow cars in order to actually keep doing my job.  Then about two weeks later I was offered a job with my current, soon to be former employer (more on that in a bit), it was a real life miracle so I quickly said hell yeah to the job offer and resigned my position with the Census Bureau.  For the next year and some months things were good, fuck they were better than good.  I had a good paying job, for my town anyways, I had time to knit and watch Dr. Who, and absolutely no real stress so my days off were actually enjoyable.

Then mid-way through 2011 things starting slowly going to shit on the job aspect of life.  The job I currently have is at a call center doing customer service for a cell phone company, and two things happened mid 2011 which made my job go from meh to the worst thing in the fucking world.  The first was the announcement that we would be moving from being straight customer service to customer service and sales.  I fucking hate sales with a passion.  I've worked retail and briefly telephone sales for a satellite cable company, no the other one, and both of those experiences taught me two things.  One, I suck at sales.  And two, sales sucks.  So, basically my job went from trying to do what was best for the customer to pushing things the customer didn't really need on them something that I have never felt comfortable doing even to this day.  The second thing that happened was the merger that wasn't.  When news of the maybe merger was announced we had an influx of angry customers calling in expressing their distaste and unhappiness with the news.  Along with these two things there were a number of policy changes that caught customers by surprise like changing due dates and implementing a restoration fee when services were suspended.  Nothing too drastic, but for people who had been with the company for ten years and then all of a sudden an extra fee when  services were suspended it was huge.  I tried to make the best of it and trudge along.  Then about two weeks ago the axe fell.  They were closing the center come June.  So, come June I will be unemployed yet again, unless of course I get fired before then, which is completely possible since for the life of me I can't seem to meet their sales quota and the internets is teeming with stories that the company is cleaning house before the closings in June.  A way to save some money on severance packages? Maybe.