Saturday, June 10, 2017

chit chat

la la la la
What am I doing?


I am reading exactly zero of the novels I requested from the library.

I tried a few, but I just can't get into novels anymore.

Instead I am reading Tracy Kidder's memoir My Detachment, about his time as a 22–23 year old, serving in the US military behind the lines in Vietnam, gathering radio intelligence.

It's good--more about being young than about war. 
I'm impressed with how he reveals his younger self: 
quoting lies he wrote back home, to make himself look good--that he was watching out for two Vietnamese kids, for instance--and excerpts from the embarrassing Vietnam novel he wrote when he got back that 33 publishers turned down, for good reason. 

Perhaps he's willing to expose himself because he went on to have a brilliant career? And he came to some self-awareness?
At any rate, I like how he looks on his younger self with a lack of judgment that feels akin to affection. 

I feel that affection toward my younger self too, for thinking, on the one hand, that I had it All Figured Out, and on the other, that I would Never Understand Anything. 

II. My Ambitionless Job Hunt

Also, I've started applying for jobs, finally!

I was getting a little worried that I couldn't start applying for Serious Jobs, and was going to use up all my savings. The job counselor had laid out all these great-sounding possibilities--writing for the medical field, doing research, etc.
 Finally I realized I dreaded working in an office, truly felt sick dread when I thought of working full-time at a computer, even doing something interesting.

 I'd rather make sandwiches at Subway.

So then I thought, well, why don't you?
So I applied there
a couple days ago, and I felt such relief.
I don't know that they'd hire me, and it pays terribly--it's a job for high school students.
But I like Subway. 
I eat there fairly often--you can have as many banana peppers as you want. I only want a few, but it's the principle of the thing I like.

My friend Esther told me, "People would be lucky to have you make them a sandwich," which made me all teary. 

I also applied for a part-time library job at St. Thomas's campus (a long shot, as my library experience is 16 years old), and Esther's husband, Kyle, emailed me, 
"You know they're all MBAs over there--if they hire you, you should watch American Psycho to prepare."

I love Esther and Kyle. They are the antidote to my WASP grandmother who didn't like me because I was nothing like her hero Lee Iacocca (the CEO who turned around Chrysler motors).

huh. I just looked him up, and while I don't want to do what he did, it seems he didn't think I should! He said:
"What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it. You don't have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don't like it, you'll never be successful in it."
Sensible words---and here are some more from Iacocca answering a question about Donald Trump in a 1991 interview in Playboy [quoted in Auto News]:
Q: What's going on with the business establishment of this country? The Donald Trumps, for instance.
Iacocca: I know Trump fairly well. Now that's an ego that's gone screw-loose, gone haywire. What the business establishment of this country has to do is get away from this new financial-transaction mentality.
I can't believe I'm still arguing in my head with that grandmother, who died when I was twenty-five. 
She didn't understand me at all, so she was wrong about me. Speaking of youthful absurdities, why did I ever give her ideas about me a minute of my time? Lee Iacocca wouldn't!
I am retiring her voice, effective immediately.

3 comments:

ArtSparker said...

People who are Very Sure of Themselves frequently will persuade those who are open-minded that there is certainty in life. Certainty is simply one way of coping with the too-muchness of life.

Michael Leddy said...

"You know they're all MBAs over there": yikes. I know that a fair number of people in the library world are dead-set on getting rid of books. I don't know if they're the same ones who have MBAs.

Fresca said...

SPARKER: "People who are Very Sure of Themselves"--that describes my grandmother.

MICHAEL: The job ad did emphasize that people use the library space for meetings. Perhaps it's just rooms with no books?