No Good Deed…

A few weeks ago, we were waiting outside a Little Caesars for our pizza to be ready when Curtis and I were approached by a homeless man.

(And of course, the bundles we had just made were at my place instead of in our cars 🤦‍♀️ )

He asked if we had any money, but we didn’t have any cash on us. I gave him the 41 cents in my wallet and we told him to wait with us for our pizza so we could give him some.

He was cold and asked if we had a blanket, and Curtis gave him one out of his car. When our order was finally ready, we gave him a piece of pizza, bought him some crazy bread, and then I went back to buy him some water to make sure he was hydrated.

The water was TWO DOLLARS AND NINETEEN CENTS. That’s more than a two liter of name brand soda from the grocery store! And this was just one little bottle! I was so annoyed! But I put my penny pincher mind on pause because this wasn’t about me. I took the water out to him, but since we had given him so much stuff (pizza slice, blanket, bread, water bottle) he couldn’t carry it all and was using the trash can lid to balance everything when… the water bottle fell in the trash can!!!!

For reference, the trashcan looked like:

photo courtesy of the Google images

The man told me to forget about it, but that bottle was $2.19! I wasn’t letting that go to the trash! So I piled everything in Curtis’s arms to hold while I tipped over the trash can to go trash crawling for the water bottle. Of course, as I did that, I looked down and my loose glasses, aided by the fabric from my mask, slid off my face and onto the ground. As I stepped back to look for them, trash can still in hand, I stepped on my glasses. And they broke in three pieces. Then Curtis showed me that I could’ve just… taken the lid off the trashcan instead of immediately becoming a rabid racoon.

nice eh?

I told the story to my roommate when I got back to my apartment and she laughed and said “no good deed goes unpunished.” I figured that was a pretty fitting moral of the story.

I’m learning that if you really want to help people, it’s going to be inconvenient. You’re going to have to be a little selfless sometimes and part with things that you don’t want to lose, like the spare blanket you keep in your car, or a piece of the hot and READY pizza that took 20 minutes for the staff to make, or TWO WHOLE DOLLARS and nineteen cents. It’s sometimes going to come at the cost of your pride, as you learn that the ways you help maybe aren’t best for the needs of those you’re helping. It’s going to come at the cost of knowing that you will never be able to do enough to help everyone who needs it. But, in my experience, it will also come with the feeling that it’s a worthwhile fight.

I think Elphaba had some merit when she said that no good deed goes unpunished, but I don’t think I share the same bitterness about the sentiment. The superglued glasses that I now wear daily help me see “good deeds” in a different way. It’s no longer about warm fuzzies that happen after I give someone something — it’s about the way my heart breaks for people who can’t catch a break. And how it’s not “nice” of me to give what I can, it’s literally my responsibility as a neighbor, a friend, and a Christian. And responsibilities are not always easy. Or fun. Or convenient. Or rewarded.

Maybe not all good deeds go unpunished… but I’m willing to take the risk.

Advertisement

Making Job Hunting My B… est Friend

hahaha like my clickbait title? maybe it’s in bad taste but my palate isn’t very refined anyway

Ok so really funny stories about job hunting r u ready *

I put my gmail address on my resume even though I really only ever check my msn because tnhoff937 is more professional (??) than ynaffit93? and then I’ve been checking my msn like crazy to hear back from jobs for the past ___ weeks with no luck… and yesterday I logged into my gmail and I have like 40 unread messages, many of which were from employers.

Hot diggity dog, I did not know that gmail would be my mystery mouseketool.

So it turns out that maybe I could have been employed weeks ago, but… I’m glad I had that time to just panic. We all need some nice I’m-so-useless-what-am-I-gonna-do panicking time, amirite?

And during that panicking time, I got pretty desperate, so I started throwing my resume at everything. 

I signed up for more information about the campaign against Styrofoam (apparently it saves the sea turtles in some way. Boy do activists love those sea turtles) I applied to be some sort of rollin-in-the-dough customer service representative (sidenote: why?? do businesses?? post hiring ads?? without naming?? their company?? or location?? this has happened so many times!!) I applied to tutor, teach English to Chinese kids, for numerous freelance positions, deliver food n stuff (not from the Food and Stuff in Pawnee, tho, bc it got shut down), and charge scooters???

Half those gigs I turned down because like… I hate sea turtles?? (jk, Crush is the only good part of Finding Nemo) but it’s just not feasible to have 10 jobs, right? so that’s why I only have five. But they’re all kind of… not real? Like…

1. Tutoring

I applied for this tutoring company called Varsity Tutors and it’s online (but I tutor in-person) and halfway through the recorded interview, I realized I wasn’t really a fit tutor because like… I think grades are dumb and I was kind of a crummy student. But whatever, I had to finish what I started, but I was kind of an idiot the rest of the interview. They were like “tutors have to be experts at their subjects. What makes you an expert at your subject?” and I was straight up like “yo I’m definitely not an expert, but idk I like it.”

And whaddya know, they emailed me like “we think you’d be a great tutor!” So now I’m like, building a profile n stuff. I was also like “hey I’m an English major but I can tutor Algebra, why the heck not” and so they gave me this assessment, and I was like “fetch ok, maybe I can’t” but I passed it. I haven’t taken Algebra since like freakin eighth grade but it was fun then and I can use Google and text books now, so… come at me, students.

But after building my profile, I was like… “it’s…summer….kids don’t have school/classes to be tutored for in the summer??” So heck maybe it’s fruitless but WHATEVER MAN IM A TUTOR

2. Teaching English to Chinese kids!

So there are a ton of websites where you can teach English to Chinese students online, but I went with VIPKID because they were the ones who were the most annoying with their adverts all over the place? Also they’re one of the ones that require a Bachelor’s Degree and I like to FLAUNT THAT as OFTEN as POSSIBLE.

Anyway, they are complicated as heck and I had to rerecord my interview for them three times because they were unsatisfied with my first two attempts. It’s just recording yourself teaching but like…you imagine a student there instead of actually having one there. Do you know how awkward it is sitting in my room at like midnight three nights in a row talking to my laptop about my feelings very enthusiastically?? In my review, they were like “Pay closer attention to student’s output” and I just.. ??? what?? student????

In review, I just got hired like last night, so I haven’t taught yet because I have a heckton more prep to do (like this time, I get to teach a “student” who’s actually another teacher, and that might be more humiliating than talking to myself about my feelings, actually, so yea) but yeah I’m looking forward to it. Am I glad I chose this company as opposed to others? Maybe, idk, that’s the joy of not doing research, you have less room for regrets. But should you do this? Yes, and refer me because the referral bonus is awesome.

3. Resume Writing

So I signed up for this site called writers.work and it’s like $50 for a bunch of freelance tools, resources, connections, and tips, which is cool, but I was mostly just desperate and that’s why I signed up and gave them my money. They have a lot of jobs posted, and many of them are just from Craiglist (which I frequent), but something I didn’t take into consideration is that not all writing jobs that you can do in the Denver area are going to be on the Craiglist Denver. They pull from all telecommuting positions, which is not a search I’ve found out how to do on Craigslist. …but now I don’t have to, because I have writers.work

So this guy in Boston does resume writing and he needed some extra people so I applied and voila. I am a resume writer. Which is cool on the one hand, but then I opened one of those emails in my gmail about a comprehensive review of my resume from some chick who reviewed it for some reason?? and apparently it sucks so lol. There goes my confidence going into that.

I haven’t started yet but I will probably start that in the next day or two. It’s really cool because once I do the training video and figure out what I’m doing, I make requests daily of how much work I want to take on. And not only will I be doing resumes, but I’ll also be setting up LinkedIn profiles and writing cover letters so…

Pretty sweet right?!? I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. Which I have to be now, so right on.

4. Door Dash

I know what you’re thinking. One of these things is not like the others. But it’s nice to get out of the house and drive around sometimes, no?

Okay, I have wanted to drive for Uber/Lyft for years but my dad “wont let” me. Not so much not let me, because I’m a capable adult who only needs her daddy for most (not all) things, but he has helped me with my car financially a ton so I didn’t want to disrespect him in that regard.

But it finally got to the point where I was like but daaaaaaad and he was just like “you have people having sex in the back of your car, you have people puking all over your car, you have people peeing in your car, you have people____insert other wildest dreams of what people can do in your car___, do you want all that in your car?” And like… no. No I definitely do not. But what on earth kind of sources is looking at about Uber?!?

So I decided to Google Uber horror stories and lol they’re pretty good. So I will not be driving people around. I will instead be driving around to get them food and then go to their doors. Wait, I’m sorry– dash to their doors. It wont make as good of blogging material as Uber would, but I’m sure there will be stories. And I am all about a good story.

5. SLIDES

Yes, I’m still going. The guy who I helped with slides a few weeks ago wants me again for another week or so to do some caulking. I did it today and now I am covered in caulking. It will not come off my arms and hands. or nose. Or glasses. Help.

He’s trusting me to do it all myself because he’s going to be out of town and so he gave me the key to get into the waterpark and I feel mad with power. Except it’d be way cooler if there was actually water in the waterpark.

6. ???????

So that interview I was going to have about teaching the eeukaley? Rescheduled to next week.

So job hunting stats in total:

4 – on-my-own-time I-create-my-own-schedule jobs

1 – temp job

1 – job pending.

Unknown – amount of emails about jobs received that I did not respond to

Unknown – amount of unsaved sea turtles

And hey– all these jobs? Hecka good pay.

I’m really glad I have a lot of the freelance/create-your-own-schedule jobs because when I have a family, I’ll probably want that. It’s nice that I’m learning the ropes right now. But that means I have to kick my own butt and be disciplined and it’s like– I can’t leave work at work anymore because home is now work and that means I have homework and that’s kind of disgusting. I also wonder if I’ll miss the workplace, you can meet some cool people through work sometimes.

But here are some jobhunting tips from a pro (because I’m obviously a pro now)

1. find odd jobs! Craigslist has a ton of temp gigs listed and sometimes they pay really well (only do the ones that pay well. you deserve it.)
2. 1. Do this while your waiting for a real job to contact you. Better to make money while you wait to make money, right? It’s like making snacks while you wait for your other snack to be ready. Same concept, not as fattening.
3. throw your resume at everything! or just sign up if it doesn’t require a resume. Even if it doesn’t seem promising. If you are interested and you want to do it, whether it’s for the money, the experience, or whatever, nike up and just do it.
4. you can have both passion and money! so chase the freakin paycheck! We both know you need it!
5. don’t settle. don’t settle. don’t settle.
6. hey having a degree is worth it just so you know in case you needed motivation to keep going I believe in you if I could do it you can do it you go Glen Coco
7. oh yeah check the email that you put on your resume? for starters…

*I would just like to recognize that yes, I am an English major, and I know how to spell and punctuate very well, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m always going to. Deal wit it.