First Impressions on the New Job

After a solid week of work at my new job, I can honestly say one thing for certain:

MY @#$%^&! FEET HURT!!

Quite a change, going from a desk job to being on my feet for 8-10 hours per day--particularly walking on brick and concrete. I need a better pair of shoes.

The second thing is, you meet an awful lot of interesting people at City Hall; in the past week I've met everyone from City Councilors to homeless vets, from police officers to transvestites. About 2,000 people pass through the main lobby every day--if you wanted to see a cross-section of the city's population, this is the place to be.

The third thing is simply a re-enforcement of something I've always known--people really don't listen. Tell a person to place anything metallic or electronic in a tray before walking through a metal detector, and they'll dump their cash and paperwork there as well. Explain that the department they are looking for is off to the left, and they'll head off to the right. You can have the "no weapons" policy in plain view, and people will still try to smuggle knives into the building--and then complain when you confiscate it from them. I can understand people getting a little confused when first, but when you get the same message over and over again, common sense should tell you to listen to what's being said. Then again, since when has common sense been all that common?

Ah, well.

The end of a long Lent

It has been a very long Lent.

The good news is, I have a job; starting Monday I become a security officer for the Municipal Protective Service--the hollowed out remnant of the Boston Municipal Police. Not exactly what I was looking for, but at this point, I'll take what I can get. I have bills to pay.

First order of business should be going back to school and getting my Bachelor's degree. I've let it slide for far too long, and it cost me in terms of employability. It wouldn't hurt me to gain an associates degree in Criminal Law either--it's job related, so I might be able to write of the tuition on my taxes.

The second thing is to get busy writing. I've barely writen anything during the last six months. I'm never going to be published if I don't have anything writen, am I? Hopefully, now that I don't have to worry about keeping a roof over my head, I can get back to doing something creative. God knows, I'm sick of filling out job applications.

Dear God, please don't let me screw this up.

And...Reee-jected!

Still alive, still stumping around, trying to get a job; I had another one of those "WTF!?!" encounters with the City last week--more fuel for the grinding of teeth.

Got a rejection from Postcards from Hell for a piece of flash-fiction I whipped out when I discovered they were accepting submissions. The rejection was pretty nice, considering I wasn't expecting any commentary:

After careful consideration, we have decided to feed your story to the Lake of Fire. It's well written and entertaining, but more of a gazatteer entry than a story - describing one of the more humorous aspects of hell.

Minion
editor from hell

Maybe I can rework the story into an actual story. I though it was pretty encouraging that he held onto it as long as he did--I made it past the initial round of rejections. Silver linings and all that.