Real life writes the plot

Ok basically next month is going to be nothing like I thought it was going to be like. First off I'll now living alone. My sister has moved out. She told me yesterday morning. I don't really mind being alone but I was kind of depending on her for rent and half the bills. She lost her job about a month ago an my job doesn't pay a whole lot so we've been falling behind on bills and rent. Now that she's moved out I'm really in a bind with the bills and rent. Now it may seem like my sister has screwed me over but the bigger picture is hard to explain without writing several pages about my our lives so just believe me when I say I'm not mad at her.

Second I'm not going to be able to do Nanowrimo. I really wanted to try this year but with this going on I don't think I can face up to a brand new project. I will keep writing the stuff I've been working on.

My light bill is over due but if they hold off until Friday I can catch it up. Rent wise I'm up the creek with no paddle. I figure the landlord won't evict me until sometime in November hopefully not until the end.

Yesterday afternoon I went to my old workplace to see some friends. While there I asked if they knew of any cheap apartments which led to me explaining everything. That's when F said that he, M(the guy I've been working with on that series and my best friend) and another guy that I know but not too well have been planning on renting a house together and if I wanted I could join them and lower the amount everyone has to pay.

So now I'm looking for a house we can rent. F has said that they can have money saved up by the end of November to pay for first months rent and the deposit. I gathered that they hadn't planned on finding a place until around January but because of my precarious situation he's pushing the others to do it sooner.

It's weird the way life can work out. Monday morning I thought I was facing homelessness. By that evening I had been invited into a new home made with friends. It's not a perfect solution there's still a chance my light could get cut off early or I could get evicted before we find a place or save enough for rent and deposit. Despite this possible disasters I can't feel too worried about them cause at the other end is home.

I Got Fired

I don't feel like typing up the whole story so I'll just say I let my temper get the best of me and I did something I wish I hadn't and now I'm without a job.

I was fired yesterday by my regional manager. I feel a little numb about the whole thing that is when I'm not feeling hopeless about the future. This job was my life. I Don't know what I'm going to do now. The people I worked with are like family and now I've been thrust out of the home we created at work. I may be romanticizing just a little. I've only been there for two years but I can't imagine working anywhere else.

I'm ok moneywise for a couple of weeks maybe up to a month if I'm very careful with what I spend money on. I'm thinking of taking that time to try my hand at writing for money again.

The event that got me fired happened Saturday. I was suspended for a week during which the regional manager came down and decided to fire me. Early in the week my sister told our manager(she works at the same store I did) that it may have been the hormones I was taking that caused me to lose my temper the way I did. She also told her that I use the name Gillian online. I was a little worried that this might create some tension between us until my sister told me that my manager had said I might be happier if I expressed some more femininity and that I would make a beautiful woman. So now we're closer than we were but now I'm not working with her and I feel so sad.

This too shall pass. One door close and another opens. I'm going to fine. I promise.

Gilly

Random update

Yesterday something strange but pleasant happened. One of my employees referred to me as she repeatably during the day. It was strange because she hasn't done it before and I'm not out to her as trans but for some reason yesterday she kept saying she. This felt nice even if she did correct herself about half the time. It was kind like a preview of what's to come.

In other news I have decided to move out of the apartment I share with my sister and her kids in Sept. This will give me a month to get everything in order. I've made the decision but haven't told my sister yet. I haven't even told her about my raise yet. I don't know why I haven't.

I told my parents the other day about how I was now working on a salary. They weren't very excited. They expressed concerns that the company might ask me to work a lot of extra hours. I will have to work a minimum of 45 hours a week but I've already been working those kinds of hours so thats not a problem. I think they might be worried that I'm settling for a 'lesser' job. In other words, they think I should be doing something more important.

At one point in my life I might have agreed with them. Lately I've been asking myself, "Are you happy doing the work you are doing?" and the answer is yes. I am happy here doing the work that I do. I know that in the grand scheme of things running a pretzel shop is not very important. But we serve a purpose in the day to day lives of those that come to the mall and those that work in the mall. Until cheap robot workers can be made to take over mundane jobs, like making pretzels, leaving the human race to gaze intently at their navels all day, someone has to do it. And I don't see why it shouldn't be me.

The Hardest Part Is Saying The First Word

I said a few posts ago that I wasn't going to worry about coming out at work until I was ready but now I'm feeling that I may need to tell my manager and regional manager soon. They made me a salaried employee. To offer something like that to someone who has been with a company for less that a year is a big deal. It's a big deal to me at least. They could easily have just given me a modest raise like I was expecting. I was looking for table scraps and they threw me a steak.

I don't feel it's my duty to tell them but I feel like I don't want to rock the boat too much when I do transition. I wasn't worried about that before cause as much as I liked the job and wanted to keep it and as many times as I've been told I am a good and valuable employee, I thought I could always find another job. Now I feel like a valued employee and don't want to lose this job.

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My boss asked me what I was going to do with all the money I'm going to be making. I said I didn't know but I do. As he asked me the numbers began dancing in my head sorting themselves into neat piles.

One pile for living expenses.
One pile for savings.
One pile for electrolysis.
One pile for HRT.
One pile for doctor visits.
And one pile for whatever I want.

But I couldn't tell him about the electrolysis or HRT so I just lied like I always do when something like this comes up. I want to stop lying.

ZOMG!!!

I'm a salaried assistant manager! Woot!

I was expecting a raise due to minimum wage increasing to just a little less than what I was already making. My manager has been telling me that I would be getting a raise but at my last job I heard similar promises about getting a raise that took most of a year to bear fruit. So I was a little bit skeptical hearing that I would be getting a raise sometime after the pretzel store opened. I prepared myself for weeks if not months of being told that it would be coming. So I was somewhat surprised when my manager told me our regional manager was thinking about offering me a salaried position. I was completely floored when he called my into the office a few hours latter and told me they were offering me a salaried position that would pay not quite twice what I'm making now. I've heard of being speechless but never really experienced it till today. For several minutes I could not form words.

This week has just not been a good blogging or writing week. I thought I'd whip up a quick post.

First good news. I am typing this on my new Eee Aeus. So far I'm loving it. It is totally walk around the house portable. Small and light enough to easily carry one handed. My last laptop was a monster with a 17 inch screen. It was nice to look at and use but not easy to move around unless holding it with both hands and braced against some other body part. The ten inch screen on this gem is smaller than I'm used to but not to small to be annoying. It cost me $349 plus tax.

Second more good news. My store is part of a group of stores which was in competition with other groups of stores during the first quarter of this year and our group of stores won. And as part of the management team I got a larger bonus which just about covered the cost of my netbook.

Third good and bad news. I'm going to be getting health insurance through my store which they don't offer to regular employees just management, which I am in the eyes of my manager but not yet in the eyes of the company. The regional manager is going to push it through to get me health insurance. Now on to why I need heath insurance. Basically I be or may be becoming diabetic. It runs in my family and I really don't eat right or exercise enough so if I am it's my own fault. But my symptoms(dizziness, lightheadedness, difficulty remembering words, fatigue and tiredness not linked to lack of sleep) might be something else so I'll glad that I'm going to be able to get medical care.

Fourth good news. Our cat Tinkerbell started giving birth while I was writing this. So far two have come out but we think there will be more.

Thats all for now.

Quick post part 2

Still not much going on.

I've either lost my wallet or simply dropped in a friends car. I really hope that when I can look tomorrow in said friend's car that I find it. That wallet has my drivers licence, social security card, my check card and to top it off it has my last pay check. Do to Good Friday the banks were closed on the day I got my check and I just haven't made time to go to the bank. If I did't have a little saved up I would probably have cashed it sooner but because I have enough to get by on I let it slide. I'm feeling kinda scared. I just checked and there has been no activity on my check card so that's one good thing I guess. There's nothing I can do until tomorrow except try to keep from freaking out

Someone linked to a pdf titled A 6-Minute Difference in a discussion about fitness for transwomen. Its a very brief story about how one runner's times were effected by transiting from male to female. It's a nice read and has some interesting info for transsexual athletes.

The weekly digest of "Am I Memorex?" is up early tonight.

Tonight I am drinking wine, read to find out why

This is going to be short. Today I was the manager on duty. The only manager. I think this is the first time I've ever worked open to close on a Sunday as a manager. I was a little bit scared but felt confident that I could handle it. And the day went pretty smooth.

I opened the store with two employees. They set up the store while I decorated the mornings cakes. I had a bit of a fright when a few hundred people walked into the mall all at once. I found out by asking one that they were a group from Georgia. Thinking that if even a fourth of them decided to buy a cookie I would be in danger of running out of cookies, I started baking more cookies. I don't know what happened to those people, I never saw them leave so I guess they left through another exit.

Luckily for us a group of dancers was putting on a show right near the cookie shop so we still got a boost in sales. We never ran out of cookies, costumers were served in a timely manner, all cookie cakes were decorated and picked up on time, I made the cheesecake brownies for tomorrow, and rolled out enough cakes for tomorrow. I counted the drawers and they were a few cents over.

Everything was perfect. (Let me stop here for a second and say that is the day was perfect it was because the people(most still in high school) I worked with made it that way. If my crew were not great employees today could have sucked but it didn't because they are some of the best workers I have known.) Then I counted the deposit and came up ten dollars short.

I recounted the drawers. I checked the safe. I recounted the deposit. I counted the drawers. I counted the deposit again. I added everything up on the calculator to check the excel spreadsheet we use add up everything. I asked an employee to watch me as I recounted everything again to make sure I wasn't just making the same mistake over and over again.

After about twenty minutes I figured out the cash in the deposit was correct. The missing ten dollars was in the coinage. This makes no sense. There is no way for ten dollars in coins to be missing from the deposit. There is never more than two or three dollars in coins in the deposit. I called my manager told him about the shortage and left the deposit for him to check in the morning. I left work about forty-five minutes later than I should have. Forty-five minutes of trying to find impossible ten dollars in coins.

This has left me a little frazzled. It isn't the shortage that has me frazzled. I've been short before. It the way we're short that has me upset. It's just not possible for the deposit to be short ten dollars in coins. I don't normally drink alcohol. But tonight I'm stressed out about those ten dollars so I'm drinking some wine, not a lot, just enough to relax me. I'm going to cue up the first season of Torchwood and drink a little more and probably fall asleep early, which is why I'm writing this now instead of later.

Hmm that wasn't nearly as short as I thought it would be. Oh well, Captain Jack Harkness awaits.

Oh yeah Part 9 of "Am I Memorex?" will be up later on Gillian's Fiction at it's normal 1 AM time slot.

Am I Memorex? - Part 5 up and some ramblings

"Am I Memorex?" Part 5 is up on Gillian's Fiction.

I really got nothing else to say tonight. I spent my day off at home doing a little writing and reading. I cleaned up my room a little but got sidetracked by watching Firefly. I just got the set of the series. Yeah I should have bought it a long time ago but I rarely by TV show DVD sets because they seem to cost so much and it's rare that I'll sit down and watch them so it's this whole "how much I paid for it" vs "how much I'll really use it." But I'm more secure financially so I'm letting my self buy a high cost($50-$100) item once a pay period. I of course spend more than that on other things combined during the same period but on smaller cheaper things. It's just the way my mind thinks spending of money. Buying twenty $5 items over a few days is fine but buying one $80 item feels like spending a lot of money.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, not cleaning my room. Well I did clean a little. I just didn't finish.

And here's a cake I decorated for a customer. This was one of those rare ocassions where a guy just wanted a cookie cake with chocolate and white icing but didn't care what it looked like. So I did this:



I liked the way it came out so I thought I'd share.

Ok, it's 3am as I write this so I'm going to clear off my bed, cue up the latest episode of Castle(I'm feeling the need for more Nathan Fillion tonight) and then go to sleep. See ya tomorrow.

Am I Memorex? - Part 3 & 4 up / Work news

Part 3 and part 4 of Am I Memorex? are up on Gillian's Fiction.

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I'm still waiting on my promotion and raise. My manager is confident that the powers that be will grant me both. I'm remaining optomistic but keeping in mind that it isn't set in stone.

Being the closing manager I really need my own transportation so I can stop begging rides from my crew. Not that I have to beg them, they're but I would feel much better if I wasn't depentant on them for my way home. I'd really like to get a nice used(maybe new) car of a lot and pay monthly for it. Right now I don't think I could afford a monthly car payment with what I make now but if I get that raise...

I really hate that I'm waiting for something out of my control to happen so I can better my situation. I may take a real hard look at where I'm spending to see if I can't tighten my belt a little and find that car payment money with what I'm making now.

In other news, my manager needs surgery for a hernia costing about $5000 and right now he doesn't have any medical insurance. He's fifteen days from finishing his 90 day probation period here. His doctor has cleared him for work for now but he's not supposed to lift anything heavy. When he goes in for surgery it'll be just me and the other assistant manager running the store while he recovers. I'm not worried about that but I am worried that my manager is going to overwork himself. I know at least twice in the past month he's worked so many hours at a time that he's been practily falling down. I've told some of the others that work at the store that we need to keep an eye on him so he doesn't do this. I like that he takes his job seriously but he won't be much use if he works himself to death.