I get to a stoplight driving D. to a karate friend’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese’s, and see the Facebook notification I’ve expected to receive every Saturday: the weekly schedule for the restaurant’s shifts, posted on the private group. I didn’t look at it right away, of course, being in a moving car at all, but also, I had the proverbial bad feeling. I decided to wait till I got home.
Four hours later, we are back home, and I open the schedule. And sure enough, there it is: from four or five days I’ve had during the past two months or so, now I only have two. It’s the end of the high season, so less tourists, which means less business at the restaurant. My manager had warned me about this possibility when I requested no more Saturdays and only lunch shifts as possible, so I wasn’t entirely surprised, but still this stung. From around six hundred dollars a week, I’m going to be down to two hundred if I was lucky with the tables and didn’t pick up any extra shifts.
This, to put it bluntly, sucks.
That was over two months ago. Last week, it fin ally changed: I got two days in the week. I covered for a friend on Monday, so this week I was finally approaching the black, out of the red, and I’m expecting an extra payment on Friday (update: it didn’t come). But this has been some of the worst two months I’ve had since moving to the States, and I need to make a change soon.
If only I weren’t so terrified of change.
-oOo-
Change has never been easy for the majority of people I know. I admire those who can just up and move every year or so, change a job like it ain’t no thing, switch couples like they switch underwear. (Ok, maybe not so much admire, those.) I’ve received so much flack for not taking a stand sooner on so many things. I spent five years in a soul-sucking job until I was fired. I spent eight years in a relationship I knew wouldn’t last and proceeded to be married for nine months. I’m about to be one year in a job that, while I have a lot of fun and has brought me many satisfactions, is not what I intend to do for the rest of my life. Not even for another year, actually.
I have been having this bad habit for all my life. I just don’t have the guts to recognize it’s time to up and go. I’ve only been able to do this once, in my last job as a true reporter in Caracas, and that was because I hated the owner’s guts. But the comfort zone is something that wraps me up like a blanket, and I rarely know when to let it go.
And now, I can’t afford to do that for long. Last month saw me reach new lows in my bank account. I managed to pay rebt, utilities and my phone, but that’s it. No new books, no helping with the groceries, no dates with the GF. It stresses me out. It urges me to change to a more reliable job, one that ensures me money every fortnight.
I must find the guts, and soon.
I know I will. I just hope I do it soon.
My Mind in Letters 