6/52 – Clear Credit Cards

I waited longer than some people I know to get a credit card. In fact, I didn’t get my first until the beginning of last year, when I was twenty-four. I didn’t exactly do it through a conventional route, either. I opened a second bank account in order to get a secured card through that bank (which is a national chain, versus my usual state credit union that I use as my primary account and that I’ve banked with since I was seventeen).

That card has a limit of $300. Since it’s secured, I can raise it pretty much at will – up to $1,000 – but I haven’t felt the need to do so. My other card, I got just four months ago and it also has a $300 limit. This past Christmas, I nearly maxed both of those cards out, for the first time. It made me nervous, having them both full, so the first thing I did with my tax return was pay both of them off again.

The other money went straight to my SO, to make up for my portion of the bills, since I’ve been so slammed with school that I’m down to working just 20 hours a week.

I expected to feel relieved once the cards were paid off, and I do. I also feel somewhat accomplished, even though one of the cards has a regular bill paid with it every month and will get hit another $50 within the next couple of weeks.

I did not expect to feel so much temptation.

For instance, I badly want to purchase a new desk. A “big girl desk” that will replace the one that I’ve had for six years. The age of my current desk isn’t really my problem (even though it’s showing in some chipped and peeling paint). My problem is that the desk is simply too small to accommodate all of the stuff that has come with nursing school. At present, the binders I use on a daily basis live on the ottoman, along with my two clipboards, drug guide, backpack, and various office supplies.

My desk is at capacity with just my computer monitor, a lamp, and two letter trays on it.

It’s more of a writing desk that I have forced to be a computer desk, really.

The desk I have my eye on is currently on sale for $289 at Staples. It’s an L-shaped desk which is an instant upgrade, but it also has a hutch built in with ample storage for all of my office supplies, my school books, and even my SO’s desk clutter – bills, keys, ect.

I didn’t expect to want to put something on the credit card that would max it out right away and I’m struggling with the urge to get the desk now. The dilemma of it being on sale versus the fact that I just paid off the card is making me go in circles, trying to decide the smart course of action. Really, I know what that is . . . keep what I’ve got and don’t use what’s meant to be an emergency card on what is clearly not an emergency situation.

Adulting is hard, sometimes. Trying to balance wants and needs.

The desk is a want, clearly. Having the card available for emergencies is a need, clearly.

In eight more months, I will graduate and I will hopefully get a job that will pay me almost double what I make now. And then I will be able to afford to get a new desk, if I still want/need a new desk. Patience. It’s a virtue, apparently.

“Happy” Birthday to Me.

Birthdays are an interesting part of American culture. You have your first one before you’re even old enough to properly blow out candles and some people say their first birthday is one of their earliest memories. (I don’t personally remember mine, but there’s a picture of me as a baby looking somewhat perturbed by my cake – a two-tiered, white iced thing, with plastic clowns on it . . . I’m not sure what my mother was thinking.)

Birthdays can serve as milestones. Turning thirteen, having a sweet sixteen, getting a license at sixteen. Buying a lotto ticket at 18. Drinking legally at 21. There are all sorts of expectations for birthdays. They’re s meant to be special. A sort of congratulatory party, because you made it through another year of life. Cake, singing, presents . . . and so many cards from so many coworkers who you ordinarily don’t really speak to.

This year – today, actually – I am twenty-five. A quarter of a century old.

I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel mature and responsible, or young and carefree.

Right now I just feel sort of worried.

Last night, I confessed to my boss that I don’t think I’ll be transferred into online courses this semester, which puts me at missing about ten hours of work a week – not counting my exams that also have to be proctored at the campus. I was nervous about telling her and tried to test the waters by noting that my SO had asked, “Will you be fired, if you can’t transfer to online courses?” He didn’t ask that, actually, because he’s not worried.

She immediately assured me, “Oh, no! Little muffin, I wouldn’t do that. We’ll work it out. Life happens sometimes, to all of us.”

I felt like a fifty-pound weight was off my chest . . . but then . . .

I messaged her this morning with the confirmation of the bad news. I can’t transfer to online courses. Essentially, I received a, “Because reasons,” answer from the school on it. I let her know and crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t be angry or upset.

What I get is, “Okay. When you get in, tell me what hours you’ll be out again. I’ll have to let Roger and Jose know. I won’t be able to do anything until after that.”

Wait, what? Last night it was, “Don’t worry, we’ll work through it.”

This morning it’s, “Well, no promises.”

It would be a hell of a birthday present to be fired, I suppose. I’d have the rest of the day off, so I could job hunt. Maybe I’d even get a sympathy hire??? Technically, I do have an in at Dunkin’ Donuts, working the midnight to five shift. I’d be a decorator. And I’d be making $2.00 less and working 15 hours less. Not ideal, no. But better than nothing.

On top of this worry about my job stability (which, ironically, is a worry I’ve had since I first started working when I was nineteen), I’m worried about breaking the bad news to my SO that my tuition costs this semester weren’t properly showing up. Instead of getting back roughly $2,000 next week, I’ll owe $530 by the end of this quarter. On top of still having to pay off the credit card balance of $1,400 from last quarter.

So. This is what student debt feels like.

My birthday is not entirely without bright spots. They’re balancing the negatives (sorta).

Last night, my SO picked up my present, which he’d had on layaway . . . a brand new PS 4, complete with Call of Duty III. I didn’t set it up last night, because a) it wasn’t technically my birthday and b) I had to complete a Health Assessment assignment that took the better part of three hours to finish, because of how detailed it was.

Tonight, my SO and I will hang out at the house, maybe watch the presidential debate, while I study for a quiz tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed that he’ll set up the PS 4 while I’m at work, so that I can play some during study breaks. I also have a birthday dinner with my family on Sunday, so that’s something to look forward to as well.

Falling asleep, last night, I kept telling myself, “This will all be okay. It will all work out.”

My SO – who was really more my Owner, in this context – stroked my hair and “Mmhmm’d” at me, but he didn’t realize that I wasn’t just talking about one thing. I was trying to assure myself that everything will work out . . . school, work, us, me, life.

I don’t know if it will, actually. I feel sometimes that I’ve only stumbled through the past twenty-five years, rather than really living them. But, twenty-five years is more than a lot of people get, which makes me lucky. And here, where I’m at, the weather is great.

So, if I do get fired, at least I’ll be able to walk home while enjoying the day.

Work Narrative

“Ladies! It’s almost Friday!”

My boss walks into the break room, clapping her hands with far more enthusiasm than is actually warranted. Her hair is frizzed out around her face and her eyes and smile both seem so big today that it’s like she’s trying to be a caricature of herself. Which, I suppose, she kind of is.

Bev, standing at the microwave, raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Yeah? ‘Kay.” She’s speaks in that careful, wary tone you hear people who work with wild animals use. She’s waiting for the punch line. And there should be a punchline.

It’s only Tuesday.

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By this morning, there was no enthusiastic clapping. Only a lackluster, “We made it to Friday, people,” as my boss walked into the office with the rest of us trailing in behind.

Between my six coworkers and myself, we had already worked a cumulative 271.25 hours this week. I hit overtime at 10:15 this morning. Which, on the one hand, is nice. When I’m making time and a half for OT, it means I’m making $15 an hour. And it’s nearing the first week of the new month, so bills are due. But if I have to listen to one more person say, “Oh, uh. No. Thank you. I’m . . . busy.” And if I have to make one last attempt to save a call by going, “Not a problem at all, sir! Is there a better time I can try back to reach you?” Only to hear the end click of the phone line disconnecting, I might just lose my mind.

Granted, working in a call center has its advantages. The customers I talk to aren’t actually in front of me, so I can’t actually see their looks of disgust and chagrin when I call them to do a “customer service follow-up” that is – in reality – just a thinly veiled attempt to suss out whether or not they’re ready to spend thousands of dollars on a new vehicle. Sometimes the customers are content to just answer the “few quick questions,” but more commonly they tend to speed the process along by simply hanging up. It’s not as effective as they think it is.

Company policy requires me to call back, unless they clearly tell me not to.

And, according to the company, hanging up isn’t clear enough.

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Lunchtime took forever to get to. A wonderful thirty-minute window in which I didn’t need to do anything, but play a free game on my phone and eat Chef Boyardee  mini-raviolis straight from the can.

Bev wandered over to my cubicle. “Sup?”

It made me smile, because Bev is nearly in her fifties. All of her children are older than I am. She’s worship leader at her church, was the wife of a member of the US military. Yet, she asks, “Sup?” with all the head-tilting, arm crossed, attitude of a gangster.

“Is it time to go home yet?” I asked. Not hopefully. Just sarcastically.

She smiled and suddenly looked just like grandmother in a blazer from Target, but she was really frustrated enough to tear her hair out and on the verge of tears of boredom. I understood. It really is like Janice – one of our newer coworkers – says sometimes. This is day five of the hostage situation and negotiations are not going well.

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“Sammy-Sam!”

My boss was over-caffeinated.

“Yes, ma’am?”. I try to reinforce the fact that we are boss and peon by being as polite and professional as I can. It isn’t very effective, as far as cluing her in to the fact that I don’t like being called Sammy, let alone Sammy-Sam, but it does tend to focus her a bit.

“Little muffin! How are you?”

Well. Sometimes it works, anyway.

“. . . I’m good. Working . . .” You should try it.

            “Good! That’s good. What’re you on?”

“Round 5.” Thank god.

            “Oh! Good. So, listen, what if I –“ She cut herself off and I heard her mutter, “Oh, damn.” There was a second-long pause and she said, “Hold on I’ll call you back,” so quickly that it became one word. In the next instant, our connection vanished and I heard her shriek, “Grampy!”

The man on the phone wasn’t really her grandfather, of course. He’s her supervisor.

But definitions and office boundaries get a little blurred around here.

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