... 6 months later

and i have not taken the banking world by storm, in fact its all i can do to keep from crying each day as i walk in and sit in my station, i always get there early to get coffee and prepare myself for the spirit crushing challenges of the day. the first challenge: morning meeting. now i like my direct supervisors, the ones i work with all the time, but the higher-ups, not so much. have to hear the same thing every day about getting sales, sales, sales, how every conversation should have a sales recommendation, even though its supposed to be needs based selling, and most people we see have all their needs met already, so i'm not sure how that supposed to work... its been terribly slow in the bank, apparently it usually is in the summer, just the regulars and businesses. i don't know who they expect us to sell to, its endlessly frustrating, and can't help feeling like a small child being chastised for parents' divorce or bankruptcy or other such event that a lowly cog like myself has no control over.

in short, i really don't like it, i had hoped that at the very least people would be more polite and respectful in a bank, but i think an emphasis on a customer is always right mentality in our culture has just bred ruder customers who feel as if they can and should be able to say whatever they want to us knowing we can't do the same, this behavior seems to be across the board, doesn't matter where you work. and the bias against big banking is so prevalent that people seem to become unreasonable over the smallest of things. to set a few things straight...

1. banks don't make their money off of fees, they make money off of charging interest on various loans, the fees are there to discourage certain activities, encourage others, and offset bank expenses. example- overdraft fees- YOU ARE SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE, the bank basically fronted you the money, gave you a small loan, unless there has been some mistake on someone else's part there should be consequences for that. service fees- most banks have a way to eliminate the service fee, usually with the addition of other things like a savings acct or direct deposit, its to encourage the customer to do all of their banking in one place. check cashing fee- you don't have an account at a bank but have a check from a business that does, so you go there to cash it, and they charge you a fee. cashing a check, even one drawn on the same bank is still a service the bank chooses to provide and it costs the bank to do so, the fee is waived for those who have accounts. there are labor costs involved, at the teller window of course but also in other areas, the bank has to have more money on hand to accommodate cashing checks for people, and transporting and storing money securely is an expensive undertaking, so the fee just offsets what it costs the bank to provide this service. to end this one out, don't look at me as if those fees go straight into my pocket, i have no control over that. if you bank wisely you shouldn't get any fees. before i ever worked in one it had been years since i had any kind of fee.

2. there are rules and laws to banking that if we do not follow could result not only is us loosing our job but possible criminal charges, so when the bank says "no, you can't do that" its not one person being mean, its usually a law or regulation being ethically upheld. example - how a check has been made out is very important, the written amount is what we go by, not the numeric, it can only be cashed or deposited on or after the day its dated. and only the person who it is made out to can negotiate it, unless it has been properly signed over to someone else and that signature verified. if it is made out to multiple parties then its even trickier. we have to pay attention to these details to protect all parties concerned. so when i tell you you can't cash a check made out to a business when you don't have business accounts or any way to prove you own the business, i'm saying that so that the check doesn't come back and get the both of us in trouble, i'm not being spiteful, i'm being ethical and doing my job. oh and p.s. a business card is in no way proof that you are in fact the sole proprietor of said business, one can have a business card made up to say ANYTHING.

3. debit cards are your friends. checks are the enemy. and cash... don't even get me started, example -i saw a counterfeit $10 today, it was a very good fake, very good. besides if you loose it its just gone, no getting it back, and if you spend it all unless you keep record of all your receipts you have no record of where it all went. i have talked to people who after a long time of being set on only using cash, finally got accounts and found when they could see where it was all going they could budget better. example - someone can steal your identity from the information on a check. think about it, your name, Address, Phone Number, SIGNATURE, ACCOUNT NUMBER, i've even seen some checks with a social security number on them. i don't care what lifelock says, thats not a good idea. a debit card contains none of this information on it, and as long as you keep your pin to yourself and keep track of the thing you should be safe. and if you do loose it you can cancel it right away and since the number on it is NOT your account number they can just send you a new debit card and you don't have to worry. some one takes a box of checks and you'd have to close out the account entirely and open all new to protect yourself, and even then they can still write checks to some places that don't have the tech to verify the account is active and that could be very hard to find and fight, and do much damage to your credit. just because you have always done something one way does not mean its the best way, and by not being open to change you could be doing yourself damage.

sorry for the banking rant but its just so frustrating how stubborn people are when they don't understand how these things work and don't want to admit it or have it explained even though most of the time there could be a much easier way. also they get so upset and concerned about the wrong things. they get angry when we ask for two forms of ID before giving our info or money, apparently we should just know who they are, they've been "banking here for 20 years!", or my favorite "i just deposited to that account of course its me!" you can deposit into anyone's account, just because you put $100 into Tom Jones's account does not make you Tom Jones so if you want Tom Jones's account balance i'll need to see ID, we're just trying to protect their money and they're mad, yet they'll gladly write out checks and carry lots of cash around, and don't have a debit card cause they don't think they're safe. its maddening.

coping... i have plastered my small space (finally have my own space now, for a while i felt like a total vagabond assigned to a different station every day) with post-its covered in costume designs and notes on what all i would design and make for various costumey things if i had the time and the means, as well as thoughts and notes on the network i would create around said costumery in an attempt to coax forth a viable occupation out of it all. it helps me feel better but am sure to get talked to soon about drawing where people can see me. apparently when there is no one in the bank and nothing for us to do we are just supposed to sit quietly, staring straight ahead in eager anticipation for the next customer... i feel the strain of it all and am getting increasingly morose and bitter, all my creativity and happiness leaching out of me onto the strange pink and black marble counter top.

on the more positive and interesting side, small sewing side job is picking up. can only hope it will manifest into something more substantial and save me from soul death and corporate rhetoric and propaganda brain suck before i'm reduced to a gibbering idiot who can only repeat trite phrases in a sing-song voice with a fixed smile.

so i did it

i got a real job. so there. i will take the banking world by storm, well not really, but hey its full time and pays well.


heres a picture of a painting i'm working on, its not finished but i like how its coming along

ugh

this morning i had my third job interview in a week, not for jobs that i really want, but for good jobs, jobs that would support me and lead to a more stable career than my museum dream. two bank teller positions, one of which they won't be hiring after all but they will "keep my information on file" so i will be "pre-screened and ready to go" if a job does open up and i apply again.

the third is working in mortgage collections department of a bank, i have absolutely no experience and i really hope i don't get it, its lots of calling people who are late on their mortgage payment. scary. but i had to apply, my aunt works there in a different department (which is the only reason i got an interview i'm sure) and it pays well and... i don't know, i just managed to talk myself into thinking it would be something i could do. if on the off chance i do get the job i would have to commit to staying there for some time, i couldn't just up and leave if i get hired at a museum. and that scares me more that calling people who are late on their payments.

i don't know what to do, i don't know if i'm ready to give up on my dream job

there is a museum job i do have a chance at, its not the best, just a temporary museum aid job at a historic site i used to volunteer at, but it would be a good foot in the door/stepping stone for other, better, more permanent federal museum jobs, and i would so much rather do that that get hung up on and yelled at for being the big bad bank that is going to foreclose on someone's house because they got laid off and can't make their payments.

*sigh* but i have to grow up and get a real job, a job that may not be my ideal, i just hope i don't get this one, i just want my family to know i tried, that i AM trying...

now i have the rest of the day off, which is good, i really need to paint after that :/

projects

so i've been sketching in preparation for a painting of b and me, it will be one year for us next month, so i thought that would be a good present. he's been so encouraging during my recent artting surge that it seems most appropriate, and he'll love it. a couple of sketches turned out rather well, so i got some frames and hung them up in lieu of the painting until its finished.

(i should have scanned them but i didn't think of it til i already had them in the frames, my good camera broke and the old one is terrible, so its out of focus and the color is a little off, but you get the idea)

The Extraordinary

12/19/09

Frustration. Wrapped in her little world, that’s all she came to think of. All the promises the world made to her and didn’t keep. She’d done everything, played by the rules and had little to show for it but a couple of useless degrees and growing debt.

In the quiet moments, Art called to her: music for the unusual voice given to her, writing for her ever active mind, fabric, textiles of all kinds, yarn, thread, anything was in her reach. Design and lace work, past and present, with a little thought she could see it, do it all. Think her way through the hat, as the saying went.

Yet she had done nothing with this, with any of it, lost in the daily bog of dead-end retail jobs she slowly forgot all that she could do, wanted to do. It would reappear again briefly in the form of an application for a slightly better shitty job. With each form rejection letter, with each bog day, she became more and more frustrated.

She wrote scraps of moments in spare seconds at the register, crocheted hats, sang to herself in the car and felt it all slipping. The promise of youth fading in the face of rent, groceries, oil changes, until it was all washed to bland and disfigured in the haze of frustration.

The Extraordinary beckoned from the periphery

Making her flesh pull and writhe at

The commonplace path she plodded

and it begins...

as all things in my life seem to, this begins out of frustration.

i, like many many other people, cannot get hired for a job that i want, or that i'm qualified for.

right now i have two jobs, both retail, one at a clothing store and the other at a craft store. the craft store is by far my favorite. i work in the custom frame shop of this particular craft store, and my inner decorator revels in it. today i had a customer who was looking to have a family portrait framed, it was a cute collage pic with kids and father, and the kids were both wearing red and the background was done in white and black. so i pull out a nice muted gray for the top mat, a bright red underneath that perfectly matched the kids' sweaters, and a back for the third mat. it really looked nice, just the right pop of color to accent the pic. but no, she hated it "there is no red in the room, its painted grey and grey-blue, lets try to match that". sounds like the most boring room i can imagine, so we spent the next half an hour looking at different shades of grey to go with this picture that would also "match" the room, cause you just have to match the room. gag. and then she still couldn't decide so her son is going to paint a swatch with the wall color to bring in so we can match it, i mean come on, its not Sherwin Williams, we only have so many mat colors to work with... this after i explained the concept of contrasting colors, and accent colors. sigh.

but that was put to right later by another, more spunky lady, who wanted to order the most colorful things she could, ended up with orange and purple for one and red and purple for another, those are the fun ones, the people who are willing to take a chance and have something that really becomes art on their walls :)

the other thing about the craft store, i have the most awful time not just buying everything. from soap making to knit and crochet, oil painting to glass etching. i want to do it all. i've knitted, tatted, and crocheted for years, there is just something about string, yarn things like that, it just makes sense to me. my grandmother taught me how to knit before i was in school, i picked up tatting while doing living history at a local historic site in high school, and i picked up crochet in college as a quicker alternative to both when one needed an emergency gift. i got to a point where i could sit down and watch a movie and have a scarf at the end of it. so needless to say all of my friends have scarves now and its time to move on. i really need to get back to knitting, you can do so much more with it.

i had some great ideas in grad school (where i studied museology, or museum studies), a whole clothing line designed and never made, i still want to learn bobbin lace, tapestry weaving, spinning, Victorian hair wreaths, and basically anything fiber i can get my hands on, but right now, my current distraction/obsession is oil painting. i have decided to learn. i have some little drawing background, a single class in fashion illustration in undergrad (where i studied fashion design some 8 years ago now...) but i have always wanted to paint, never thought i really could, but after having access to all the art supplies i could ever want i have decided to try. i have one painting almost complete, will post when its done.

my other pursuit is writing, much encouraged by my constant companion and sounding board- b, who is a writer in his own right. i have outlined a story, well a book really.

as i pass my days manning a register or matting and framing art, i am constantly shifting between painting: how to make a field of dead sunflowers in a slightly snowy, hilly great plains setting look interesting, and writing: how to move my characters from distrust and fear to love all without speaking... this is me, right now.