Sherri Cornelius

I started calling the sewing factory “the place where dreams go to die.” My brother pointed out that in “Dinner for Schmucks” they say cabbage is the smell of dead dreams. Two days later, early morning, I smelled cabbage. No way, I said to myself and laughed. At lunch I smelled it again, and a feeling of rightness seeped into my being. Cabbage, dead dreams, fits this place to a tee. Apparently, one of the girls can’t get enough cabbage and heats it up in the microwave, sending the smell wafting over to my machine. I told her about the dead dreams line, and she laughed. We shared a moment. One of the few bright spots I’ve experienced there.

I guess I had forgotten just how much it sucks out in the job world. I was expecting reason and welcome and cooperation. I had forgotten how everybody gets up in your business while you’re just doing the best work you can, how there’s always someone judging you and strangely willing to tell you how you fall short.

BUT…

I had a job interview at the library. My interview was less nerve-wracking since the interviewer was my volunteer liaison at the library. I don’t know why, but she likes me a lot and is willing to go out of her way to help me. It’s good to have someone on your side.

The next step is waiting for my background check to complete. My advocate called me on Wednesday to make a provisional offer of employment, contingent on the OSBI report coming back clean--which, uh, yeah. No problems there. I had to suppress my joyous noises because I was in the snake den, i.e. the break area of the sewing factory, so I hope she understood how pumped I was. I think she did.

So the only thing I’m worried about is the part-time nature of the job. I’ll be making about as much per hour, but varying hours. It’ll be a challenge to fill in with a supplemental job if I need (or want) more money. That’s a worry that changes nothing in the way of the action I will take, which is to quit the soul-and-hand-crushing sewing job and cannonball right smack in the middle of a part-time question mark.

If everything works out I’ll be a shelver in less than a week’s time. Whenever I remember this tidbit my eyes well up and my body tingles. I belong there. You know how people say “you just know”? I knew from the beginning I didn’t belong at the sewing factory, and despite my natural optimism and every attempt to fake it till I make it, I haven’t had a single moment when I thought I might belong there. It literally smells like cabbage. However, I knew from the first time I set foot in this particular library that it was my place. When I go there I smile. I relax. So what’s the smell of vibrant, living dreams?

I’ve written three posts over the past few weeks and discarded all of them. Too mopey. My mood is on the upswing, though, so let’s see if I can keep the complaining to a minimum.

I’m getting settled as much as I can be in my new job. It’s funny how little the kids’ lives have changed as opposed to how much things have changed for me. The only difference for them is that I leave a few minutes before they get on the bus, and dinner is slightly less healthy. Both their father and I are home before they return, and our evenings go about how they did before, at least from their vantage point. I miss having time to myself and I’m tired, but having money again is fantastic. Between the two new incomes we’re making more than the hubs was making by himself at his old job. We’re caught up on bills and can start working on paying down the credit cards.

If my hands hold up, that is. I mentioned before how hard sewing blue jeans is on the hands. After a month and a half the rest of my body is adjusted, but the fingers and wrists are just going downhill. That’s blue-collar working for ya. You’re just gonna ache, and that’s all there is to it. But seriously, if it doesn’t get better real soon I’m going to start looking for something else

The only thing is, I’m still waiting on the library. Yeah, that’s still in the works! They’re going to need someone “soon”. She doesn’t know when but she will call me because I’m her pick for the job. Part time, probably weekends. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever, but I only started volunteering there at the end of July. Holy crap, it feels like a year but it’s only been three months. I can’t believe so much has changed in that short period.

So my plan is to go to part time at the overalls factory when I get the library gig. I don’t want to find another full-time job only to have to leave when/if the library thing comes through in three months. HOWEVER, all my plans seem to turn to shit, so we’ll see what really happens.

Well that’s enough for now, just wanted to put something up here before someone thinks I died.

Well, I made it through my first week at the sewing factory. As I type this my fingers feel like cooked spaghetti. I did without coffee, worked through gasp-inducing back spasms, endured both the curious stares and complete indifference with which I was greeted.

But I made it.

My head was down; I endured; I coped. That was it. I missed my home and I felt physically crappy. Caffeine withdrawal didn’t help those first couple of days. I wasn’t aware I wouldn’t be able to take my coffee to my machine, and I didn’t have time to make and drink my usual two cups. By Wednesday, I got the bright idea to take Excedrin, which contains delicious caffeine along with the painkillers for my muscles, and drink Mountain Dew at my first break. It helped.

Monday was okay. Tuesday was a monster, because after work there were parent/teacher conferences and band practice. Wednesday was probably the best day, but that’s when the back pain started to get intrusive, and it just got worse until by yesterday afternoon I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I couldn’t even put my arms out to hold the denim without the muscles on either side of my spine seizing up. So I just gasped and said OMG and sat conspicuously still until I could continue. This happened between each pair of overalls.

But I made it!

Oh, and the fragrance. It’s a factory, so one would assume the fragrance would be better. I was surprised to realize it was worse than in the library. Each stall of the bathroom had a can of spray disinfectant that apparently everyone used on the seat before they sat down. Nightmare. My machine happens to sit right near the bathroom, the break area, and a couple of repair machines that everyone uses to fix their rejects. Plenty of people nearby with their smelly detergent, lingering air freshener, perfume and shampoo. Then Friday the weird old janitor dude mopped behind me and sprayed the tables in the break area. I thought I was going to die.

But I did not die!

Yes, I was miserable for an average of 92.7% of every day last week. But the good thing is that the first week is OVER! I know what each day will bring and how to prepare, and at the end of next week there will be a paycheck waiting for me for the work I did this week. Positive thoughts, Sherri, positive thoughts!

Rain is going to barely miss us, and for once I am grateful. My girl’s marching band will play at their first home game tonight, and I don’t want anything to mess it up. The boy is at a sleepover. Oh, and also…I am employed, as of this afternoon.

Nine years it’s been since I worked for someone else, except for a little editing and some volunteer work. I feel vulnerable, resigned, relieved, excited, dreadful (dreadful?). The job is at a factory that makes overalls. Here’s a video of the type of machine I’ll be running.

 

I did this job for several years at another factory before it closed. I swore I’d never sew in a factory again. Early on I even turned down a good job because I wanted to make a new path for myself. Somehow, I lost my way, and went in a big ol’ circle. It kind of sucks.

The job is dirty, and my hands will ache all the time, but working again is going to rock. After I stopped being depressed about the two-steps-back thing, I realized it will be much easier to rejoin the workforce in a job I’m comfortable doing, rather than adding to my stress by doing something completely new. This isn’t the beginning I’d hoped for, but it’ll do. For now.

I often post about my half-hearted job search—like how I need money, or how hard it is to find a job after being a stay-at-home mom for eight years, or how I don’t know if I can work in a public place with all the smells, or not knowing what field to go into with my non-specific set of skills. I’ve known I needed to get a job for money, yes, but also for my sanity. Volunteering at the library was supposed to help me segue into a paying job, but not for another month or so.

At least, that was the plan. But God laughs while we make plans. The hubs lost his job last week.

Obviously, my need to make some dough is suddenly all-important. Not something I can put off till I’m comfortable, which is to say, unafraid. It probably never would have happened that way anyway.

So. Money-making propositions.

Selling soap would be good, if I had listened to my instincts earlier in the year, when those batches would be nicely cured by now and ready to package. But no. The soap I made the other day will be ready in a month, and even then it’s not a sure sale. Plus, I can’t really wait a month to see some income.

Freelance editing is still an option, except many previous attempts to break the ice on that failed, leading me to believe it might not be the job for me after all. Plus, it also would take too long to see a significant amount of money.

My library isn’t hiring right now, unfortunately. I’ve decided to visit libraries in neighboring towns to see if any of them are fragrance-free. I did this last year but stopped after three. At each one, the smell was strong enough to knock me over as soon as I opened the door. I will extend my search, I guess, although any commute over a half hour will be impractical.

A factory job might be ideal, if they don’t produce something toxic. Last year, when I was looking for a job in earnest, they were sparse. All in the medical or sales fields, two fields I will only attempt if I’m desperate and hungry. I had plenty to eat last fall, so after a few unsuccessful interviews, I put off the job search. This year I’m seeing more variety, so a traditional job is a better possibility.

I feel strongly that a way is opening for me, and that it will be clear soon which way that is. It will probably be something I’ve never considered. The Wheel turns. Meanwhile, the hubs is hitting the pavement and I’m editing a book to put on Amazon, maybe two, and getting my resume in order. Whatever happens, things will never be the same.

Scary, but good.

My friends on Facebook might remember a few weeks ago when my bike was stolen, the idiot rode it right by my house, and I went down there to confront the gang of kids and retrieve my bike

Drama.

Up to that point the kids mainly messed with mailboxes up and down the street. Like, you’d see too many doors hanging open to be coincidence. The knob on my plastic mailbox was broken off and thrown on the ground. But we’d never be able to catch them in the act because it happened in the wee hours of the morning.

Then my bike was stolen, and it seemed to escalate from there.

A friend who lives across the street from the bike-thief’s house (their apparent base of operations) had things stolen out of his pickup the same night they took my bike. I told him who to talk to, and he was able to retrieve his items from the disinterested parents. We agreed we needed to start keeping our homes and cars locked, something I’ve never had to do before, and I started rebuilding the broken shed door.

It was quiet at my house for the next couple of weeks, but apparently they were still causing mayhem at other places, because the bike-thief girl got arrested last week. A few days later they ripped the door off my mailbox, and went through and stole items my friend had set out for a garage sale. On my way into town to get a new mailbox, I saw another family standing around their mailbox, which was lying on the ground next to its post.

Since my friend’s house is the only other one on that stretch of road, he’s an obvious target. Well the other night he caught two of the boys red-handed and had them arrested.

In a perfect world, this would be the end of it. The parents would step in, finally, or being arrested would scare the kids straight…but I doubt that will happen. If I’m not mistaken, a couple of the boys are the same ones I saw writing on the playground equipment a couple of years ago. They’re just old enough to do actual damage now, and bolder with their years of small crime successes behind them.

In the meantime, I spent a good chunk of change on a vandal-proof mailbox, and when they learn to drive they won’t bother with us anymore. With a vehicle, the mailbox smashing possibilities will be endless.

Suddenly I’m very busy. I’ve gotten used to having no schedule conflicts—indeed, little schedule at all—because for the past few years almost everything I do is school-related, and they don’t overlap things. I’ve also gotten to the point where if I get showered and brushed by lunch I’m doing well. It’s not that I sit around all morning, but only that I have nowhere to be.

I can feel this changing permanently.

Part of it’s my choice, like tackling some big repair projects around the house, and part of it is out of my control. My daughter has become involved in more extra-curricular activities in middle school, and my son will be there next year. This is on top of the back-to-school season. Another commitment I’ve made is to take charge of my health, which means appointments with various doctors. (I had my first lady doctor visit in about eight years, which tells you something.)

One small (and yet huge) step is volunteering at the library. I started Tuesday, and today it seems like it could have been a dream. I often dream I’m straightening shelves at public places for no pay. Really. I fear I’ll go back in there and they have no recollection of me.

My regular times are Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I have a name tag and my own drawer and everything. On my first day, the lady in charge of volunteers showed me around backstage. It felt strange to pass through that doorway, the one that reveals just a glimpse of the library machinery, and one I’d never considered I might enter. Turns out the working part of the library is almost as big as the public part, only instead of wide spaces and neat shelves, the rooms are stuffed with desks, and papers plaster every surface, horizontal and vertical. It’s wonderfully shabby; clean but impossibly cluttered.

After my tour I was handed off to my boss, (Darlene? Deborah? Oh crap, I’ve already forgotten her name…Yay, got it!) Dorothy. She showed me how to read the shelves, which is basically fixing all the books the patrons thought they were putting back in the right place but didn’t even get close. I will be working in the children’s section, where the shelves are always in flux. So my normal job is to read the shelves, but the each employee I met seemed gleeful about the possibility of using me for her own special projects.

I always suspected my hodgepodge of skills and interests would be useful in a library, and now I know for sure I should have been a librarian from the beginning.

This is a big step, knowing that I can work around people. As far as I can tell, they don’t use any air freshener anywhere in the building, aside from the public restroom. The employee restroom smells faintly of cleaner, but not air freshener. When I finished reading the Beginning Reader shelves my eyes were googly from the shelf reading, but otherwise I felt fine. It could change, I suppose, but at the moment I think I could spend all day in that building and feel fine.

Of course, I would like to work full time at the library someday. But for now, I’ll call it an internship. At least it’s something to put on my resume, and I get to help out a favorite institution.

Now I just have to hope ebooks don’t make libraries obsolete. Would be just my luck to find my perfect job only to have it stop existing. *crosses fingers*