Work and Ideals

     I’ve been working for a couple of weeks now at Best Buy. It isn’t bad. The people I work with have been really nice and I definitely prefer working with electronics over clothes or anything. Despite this, I find myself not looking forward to working. I don’t mind working in general, or not having every minute of every day to myself (like I do when I don’t have a job, hah!), the problem here is in the basic structure of my job: retail. Retail is ultimately about making money. Sure, companies can spout out idealistic, pretty sounding mottos about the customer needs being the priority, or the importance of the employees, but ultimately, the bottom line is about the money coming in. I get it, to a degree. Money is necessary to run any kind of business, to pay employees, to purchase necessary equipment, etc. But with retail the necessity is right there on the surface, a driving force for pretty much anyone involved directly with the store (naturally I don’t know about those in corporate positions).

Here we go again

     I’m back on the hunt for graduate schools for next year. I know to some degree what I am looking for in the programs and am slowly filtering out the ones that don’t suit me. I’m only on my preliminary round of cutting back schools and picking and choosing and already I’m tired and stressed. It’s too soon for me to be doing this again, but that’s my own fault. I did choose to do a one year program over here in the UK after all. Numbers and figures are floating through my head, along with the accompanying thoughts: How will I pay for the application fees? How many schools can I afford to apply to? Will I get funding? How will I EVER pay off all these school loans? I wouldn’t get a decent job if I stopped now, would I? I think my brain might explode soon.

     I feel as though I am always complaining about this stuff. Especially about money. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. It all just makes me so nervous. Maybe I’m just freaking out prematurely. Classmates and I were talking about debt the other day during our break between classes, and how much it is simply a fact of life now. If you want a higher education the majority of us have no other choice than to rack up the debt from the start. I got lucky my first few years at university with a scholarship that paid the majority of my tuition and such. But these days, with the economy and more and more people going back to school because of the job market… what is one to do? I’ll probably lucky if I can even manage to get school loans for next year. Countdown: 3…2…1… *brain explodes*

     I’m feeling all doom and gloom at the moment. Maybe I’ll just take a break and try not to think about it…. Yes, avoidance is absolutely the way to deal with all of this. *sigh*

Work

     When I moved to New Mexico I was originally supposed to get a transfer for my job. I hoped by moving in with my parents I would be able to save more money (instead of paying a $1,000 rent on an apartment in Arizona). The company is slow and I wasn’t entirely surprised that it took them forever to contact me about the transfer. I was surprised however when I got an “Employee Exit Survey” in the mail a couple of months after I moved. Not a word or even a hint from my previous District Manager that this was coming. I did apply to a few stores, but I never heard anything back from them. At that point I decided, as long as I was fastidious with my money, I would be okay without a job. I just couldn’t really spend any extra.