two seconds of courtesy

january 4 marked month fifteen (15!) of holding down a part-time and a full-time job. month fifteen of sitting in a dark office, trying to avoid most of my co-workers for 37.5 hours a week. month fifteen of playing nice with quirky customers who can't tell me what kind of granola they grabbed in out of the bulk bin. month fifteen of working all but (maybe) one day per month, without guaranteed weekends or time for good sleep or travel.

month fifteen of ignoring my degrees and my extended family and just "working."

this realization built slowly in december, until I left both jobs crying in one week and had a panic attack at my favorite bar.

I don't really need the double-income anymore. I think I have finally come to grips with paying back my $50k in school loans. I think I can finally manage my money without being anxiety-stricken at the end of the month. however, I continue to show up to both jobs because I tell myself that they are a compliment to each other: one pays me very little but provides some needed social stimulation, the other pays me more than can intially be expected for someone with my degrees but keeps me cut-off from my peers.

I could survive on the latter, I tell myself, if I saw my friends enough. but I can't seem to make or keep friends without the former, nor can I afford to hang out with the ones I already have without its supplemental income. but I can't bring myself to quit either outright.

so what do I do?

I spend my spare time as a possibility junkie, hooked on the idea of another degree, another career, an artistic lifestyle, or a ticket out of the midwest. I know I can't pick up and leave like I imagine I would, but I can still manage to fantasize on the commute. friends say I need to maintain the search for something good in the present, but I'm too busy commuting and working and making up new lives or excuses to do it.

in the meantime, I've resolved that I need to find a job where people spell my name right. while they haven't added the "e" to the end of my name on the roster at the store in the fifteen months I've been working there, at least they know how to spell it when they leave me notes or reference me in emails... except that I don't get those emails because I don't have an email account... because the first time they went to set it up (four months ago), they dropped the "e" and have yet to fix it.

and today, my boss's boss at the university didn't add the "e" to the end of my name of an official letter she drafted for the dean of the school of engineering. a letter I had input on, and even corrected my name in (in both the letter and the email to which the letter was attached!), earlier this week. how hard is it, when I give you all the necessary tools, and/or when you hit "reply" on an email, to notice this? really?!

I'd like to say that neither of these slights to my second "e" matters. that I could continue to pretend that I am valued for all that I can do at either job simply because they want to keep me around and they tell me that I'm wonderful at them. but I would be lying to myself.

two seconds of that little courtesy - two seconds in the roster spreadsheet in excel, or two seconds of double-checking in a reply - and I would keep plugging along at both jobs. it would mean that someone noticed and gave a shit.

at the end of this work week, I've got homework: my résumé.