Who Knew?

In 1989, there was a movie I absolutely loved called How I Got Into College. It was basically about a bunch of high school students and the many pressures surrounding the SATs and getting into the right college. There was also a side story surrounding the Administration Office and a few of the officer's struggle to bring in "great, smart kids instead of the usual, stiff affluent ones". It was a cute, little movie starring Anthony Edwards as the heart of gold Admissions Officer, doing his best to bring in the "right kinda student" and Lara Flynn Boyle, as one of the students he's trying to get in to the school. If you're ever in Blockbuster, pick it up. You might like it.


Based on that movie, I thought I had gotten a good sense of what an Student Admissions Officer did. I really didn't know myself, because I didn't have one when I applied to Delaware State. So now, I am a few days into my Admissions Officer in Training, I didn't realize how involved this entire process is. I had no clue. I went into dealing with Student psychology, treating this as a sales job. Instead of selling encyclopedia's, I'd be selling educations. So after hours of role playing with my other trainees and watching a video about proper student admissions from a well known public speaker, way back in 1986 - I realized something....I fuckin' hate Anthony Edwards!

=P

The Mistake Heard Round The World

As the days approaching my job, I was informed that the job consisted of a very, corporate minded environment. Suits. Ties. Polished shoes. Since working at the bank, everything was very business causal and so I didn't have that many suits (just the one acutally) and I had several ties, three of which were ugly ties left over from high school. So some new wardrobe choices were in order and it was the one thing I was worred about.

So call it an abscence of logic or just dumb reasoning, but I was told that Tuesday I had to swing by my new offices and fill out paperwork. I woke that morning, not conerned with what the day would bring, because to me it was a low impact day. Paperwork. My new boss was still on vacation and I would just be filling things out by meeting the office manager. So I just threw something on. Basically jeans and a t-shirt. Now grant it, Rick told me about wearing something else the night before and I shrugged it off as being a overly-cautious suggestion, one that I didn't heed and more than likely should have listened to initially.

I show up and everything is cool. Well except for the fact that no one knew who I was. My new boss wasn't around and informed only a few that I'd be showing up today to fill out paperwork. I was a mystery new-hire: in a t-shirt and jeans. So it was wierd to begin with as I found out later. After filling out the paperwork, I met with Hefty Smurf really quick, where I am then lambasted for my choice of dress and basically condemned for being completely stupid for doing so. I took the critque as severely dramatic and extremely hurtful. I rushed out of there as soon as I can.

As words are exchanged and reasoning explored, I clearly didn't know what I was doing in wearing what I wore, because my reasoning was simply -- it was just paperwork. It didn't end up that way. The malady turned ugly and Hefty Smurf's rep was in danger and possibly frowned upon, because it was at his behestment that I'd be interviewed for the position, because he was being a friend and a being who knows me, felt that I could do that job. His recommendation might now seemed ill-informed. People saw me. So not only was I there and was a new hire with no paperwork at all in the que, but I as dressed similarity to that of a student. Big mistake. Commenting to him was the first step, but it also got back to my new boss apparently, who approached Hefty Smurf on the subject of his new hire, mainly me. I don't really know what was exchanged, but the end result was that I was talked to about it by Hefty Smurf and that I would not do it again. Momentary insanity was more than likely the story. (who knows)

Now as guilty as I had already been feeling, I was hoping that it wasn't a big deal and that now that my training had started, we could all look in the other direction and move on. Nope.

I can't blame this on anyone or anything, but myself. My judgement of the situation wasn't the greatest no matter what I was doing. It seems it was about as damaging as wearing a suede Sean John sweatsuit to my first day of training. Even though I felt that I hadn't started working, it was no biggie, but as I was reminded a few times, first impressions mean everything and I fell flat on my face for my impression. In this type of environment, I had to fit the part. I didn't.

I thought I was going start with a bang, but it became a stutter. Hopefully, I can make up for it in being sucessful at my new job. If I don't I wouldn't be able to deal with letting people down who believe in me doing the right thing.

I'm Not Dead

Yeah..it's been a minute.

I haven't written anything in a very, long time. The last post was well back in April. (Well a published one that is. There were others that had never seen the light of day.)

So I bet you're asking yourself, "Hey Dre, where have you been?" Well if I had some readers than sure, but I guess this is truly for me or those few friends that I have who read my blog.

Where I have been? Around....the house mostly. When you are unemployed as long as I have, you really don't do much. I've spent most of my time, surfing the internet for work, playing my Xbox 360, and watching endless amounts of soap operas. I am such a big fan of General Hospital now (it's so ridiculous) !

"But you're home, why not write?" That's a good question.

My absence from the blog sphere has been great. How has my life been since then? I would love to say SSDD (same shit, different day), but it really wasn't. It's been a roller coaster. A very rickety, one at that too. I had fallen into that place where I didn't want to detail every single aspect of my life. Am I that interesting? Not really. At least I don't think so. When I was writing before, there were a lot of things happening to me at the time, so I had tons to write about. However, after reality chose a wicked state of affairs for me, I felt it unnecessary to write down all the crap that was going on, because after awhile it would just start sounding like complaining.

There has been things going in my life, but I really chose not to speak about them. Why? Because honestly...I didn't want anyone to know about it. Writing here was an outlet, so when that outlet was no longer viable, I decided to keep it to myself. But there's been a shit storm of things with me.

So why am I writing now? Well that's another good question. Things are finally starting to turn around and look up for me. After battling borderline depression, being unemployed for so long, being miserable, the weight gain, death of a family member, dealing with my estranged father, the dwindling of money, relationship growing pains, an insane stalker and the total doubt of my existence -- I was frankly writing post its, instead of postcards from the edge. There wasn't a shred of cathartic release in sight.

Recently, I started to realize that I was drowning, very, very slowly. The money I had from the stock buyout had been shrinking every week. I was at the end of my rope. I found myself being highly agitated at the littlest things and I was trying so hard to keep all of those feelings in, as to not to lash out at the people around me. I finally found a way to channel that strength into really finding that job. So I've been making some calls, sending out endless waves of resumes and cover letters. Friends even helped me with sending my resumes out to people they knew who might have been looking for new employees. I said to myself that I wouldn't let this pull me down, even though it was doing it so well. I had to pick myself up before it was too late. I was looking for a job that was ever so tragically was slipping from me everyday. Ah..the elusive perfect job wasn't happening for me, so I had to begin looking for something -- less suitable, but more practical in terms of settling for something for right now to at least just to keep money coming in.

Then I got a phone call. Today actually. Hefty Smurf passed my resume onto a colleague where he works and then a few days later, I get a phone call from him. It was pretty much a phone interview that lasted for about 15 minutes and resulted in a very, quick offer to work as a Student Admissions Officer. It was a rather impromptu and unorthodox thing and he said that. It happened very quickly. So before I knew it, I was back in the working class again, with not so much as blink. It wasn't what I wanted, but it's a job.

And I start on Wednesday.