Unemployment....not as good as advertised

For those of you who don't already know, I resigned from Target last week under pressure from my boss and have been unemployed since. In retrospect, I find myself wishing that I either got counseling from a VA clinic and went out on a 6 month PTSD-related FMLA or just called off sick for at least a week straight to try and milk every cent possible out of those back-stabbing bastards. However, there is a part of me that is happy to know I do have some level of integrity or honor that would make me too embarassed to be that degree of dirtbag, so maybe I'll at least have some positive karma going for me. Anyway, I have decided to move to Atlanta because of a few job leads there and also because my brother and his wife have a house we can stay in rent free for the short-term future. I will probably start my road trek out there the first week of May.

Jules, my missus, has been out of town with Liam since I quit and life has been extremely boring. Other than doing some odd jobs around the house and making preparations to move I have been more or less sitting around with a thumb up my ass. My two biggest accomplishments have probably been downloading all the White Stripes's songs from Bearshare and starting this blog.

One thing that sucks about being so bored is that there is copious time to think, which means I have time to ponder what I could have done better this past year. I've been trying to figure out how to spin my time at Target into something that will work for the positive, but I'm not sure how to do that. Looking back, I should have just moved back to the East coast while the Army was still going to move me. We have to pay our own way for relocation now and dealing with potential moving scams is more frightening than the actual cost of said move. This past year and a half with Target seems to be an utter waste of my life. It did nothing to advance me professionally, the schedule was so shitty it acted as a laziness enabler for my personal life, and I actually got stuipder because of the working culture in the building and the nature of the job. I mean that I got stupider quite literally. You could have the simplest leadership problem in the world, but after you apply the lockstep Target-think it becomes incredibly difficult. This has resulted in a degredation of my own problem-solving skills until I can shake the Target filter off of my mind.

On the other hand, if I had picked up and left, would I have ended up regretting that? At least this way I know that there is no way things ever would have worked out at Target unless I voluntarily got a lobotomy, and I'm not really too broken up about leaving Colorado. I mean, it's nice out here and all, but it's by no means the end-all be-all. Plus you wouldn't believe how many hicks and rednecks live out here. If you thought having a southern accent was a prerequisite for being white trash, you haven't been to Colroado. Or as Scott might say, you haven't SEEEN Colorado.

So anyway...trying to take away lessons learned. I would say that I have definitely learned that it's not worth it to do something you hate. Or more accurately, (since I found out Target low-balled me salary wise so bad kids fresh out of college make more than me) if you're going to do something you hate, you at least have to have something to show for it; money, prestige, something. It turns out that doing a shit job that doesn't pay well on a shit schedule for a bunch of cock bags who could just as well push you down the stairs as look at you actually doesn't do a lot of positive things for you. There have been some good times this past year, but they are few and far between and most of them either involve time spent with my son or time spent with my friends from work, making fun of Target. Unfortunately, I learned something else: with my background just about the only thing I can get is another warehouse-type job similar to Target. I started looking for work back in December and have virtually nothing to show for it now. I did everything from talk with recruiters to spam my resume out to any job board posting that I was remotely qualified for (and some that I wasn't). The only bites I got were more night shift jobs in a warehouse and offers to take wire transfers from people in Russia as long as I gave them my bank account number. There were also several heartbreaking kicks in the nuts mixed in there, as well.

Even though there are some uncertainties in my near future that make me worry, I'm also excited at the same time. I did think before, while still at Target, about what the hell I was going to do because I hated working there and the schedule was not at all conducive to doing school at the same time. Now that I'm heading out to a different place, though, there are a lot of options as to what I can do. I also think that I may have some degree of wanderlust in me that prefers to not stay in one place too long. I have moved around quite a bit in my life, not only in location but even my jobs while I was in the Army, and I wonder if changing scenery regularly is something that I actually look forward to. So I guess it's time to pull my head out of my ass now and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. At least I'll be doing that close to family and much closer to friends then out here in the rockies. I'll keep everyone posted on what turns up.....