January 16–17, 2002 — This ain’t working anymore

Yesterday I had an interview for the internship at Shift.com at 3:00 pm; then I went to see Lord of the Rings again. Then I went home and slept.

Today I spent five hours wiping down cabinets and washing dishes with Nathan at the juice bar where we work in preparation for its opening on Saturday. I started at noon, got home at 6:00 pm, went grocery shopping, and am now almost ready for bed.

If this keeps up, I won’t have enough time to think my way into foul moods anymore. Which will just be devastating for the tone of this journal. But for now we’ll just have to wait and see...

But I guess I should write a bit more than that. Starting with Wednesday.

I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to find the office where Shift is located right away, so I arrived quite a bit early. (I was also worried about a random disruption of the transit system making me late, so I allowed time for that.)

Anyway, I was plenty early, so I went to the Greyhound bus station to wait there. The last few times I’ve been to the bus station, pigeons have been wandering around inside the building like it’s nobody’s business. This time, the one nearest to me had a mangled foot and a limp. I concluded that hanging out in the bus station was dangerous business if the resident pigeons had limps, so I left and waited out 3:00 pm in the lobby of the office tower where I would be having my interview.

When I finally arrived on the eleventh floor, I was still a bit early. The receptionist had me wait in their waiting area. I looked at the painting beside me, which was of the sort that is so thick with paint that there are globs of it in places that I’m always tempted to snap off when no one’s looking. And I looked at my shoes some, too.

After meeting the person from Shift who was to interview me, we found that the conference room was booked and went to a coffee place on the first floor. I had spent too long beforehand thinking about the interview, so I was more nervous than I’d expected to be. Because the room we’d moved to seemed a bit cold, I automatically left my hoodie on, forgetting until halfway through the interview that I had dressed up for the occasion. I’m hoping that it’s the thought that counts concerning both Christmas gifts and ones attire for internship interviews.

Anyway. I find out in a week or two whether or not I was accepted for the internship. Keep your fingers crossed.

A quick interlude: before I left for the interview, I received a package in the mail from my mom.

There was no note. Just vitamins and a pamphlet entitled “Assessing nutrient needs for the vegetarian”. Cute.

I’ve been taking the vitamins everyday since, even though they’re hard to swallow. Which is to say that I’ve now had two from each bottle. Normally I’d start missing dosages on the second day, though, so I think I’m off to a good start.

Anyway. Moving on to today.

I Woke up and went to the juice place. I was there before Nathan, which establishes me as a much more reliable employee. I took the garbage out (over the course of several trips) until Nathan arrived.

After Nathan arrived, we started by washing all of the counters and cabinets and cupboards. Then I put together a desk chair and added a keyboard tray to a desk. A huge delivery of food arrived and we were told to go on break; our boss offered to pay for lunch for us, and while she went for money, we debated whether or not it was alright for us to take it. I told Nathan to say that we were fine and that she didn’t have to pay for our lunch; then, if she offered again, he could take it. This seemed like a good call since I didn’t have any money for lunch and I wasn’t sure if it would be rude to say no twice. So we did that and our boss gave us money to eat at Subway. I’m still not sure if it was the right thing to do, but here we are. Maybe she’ll take it out of our pay and we’ll all get to feel plenty professional about the entire exchange.

After lunch, we washed all of the dishes in the store over the course of a couple of hours. We commented on how much it would warm Johnston’s heart to see us working side-by-side like that. Then I asked Nathan to promise not to lock me in the walk-in freezer on our first shift together. He didn’t seem to think that it was a promise he could make. But that’s okay, because I’m sure that once the cold numbs my mind enough, it will be kind of fun — I’ll start thinking that I’m in an old episode of the live-action Batman TV show and that I’ve been imprisoned in Mr. Freeze’s lair. And I’d be paid slightly above minimum wage for my time in the freezer, so how bad could it possibly be? (Especially if worker’s compensation covers lost toes...)

Once the dishes were done, we took more garbage out and were told to go home. They said that they needed one of us to come back the next day at 9:00 am, and since Nathan has classes in the early afternoon tomorrow, I got the job. And training’s tomorrow night. And then again on Saturday morning.

So maybe I should go to bed. Soon.

Meanwhile, Andrew told me an interesting story today about this site being displayed to a class of two hundred or so people at Ryerson earlier this week. I was apparently asleep at the time. Which is kind of fitting.

I remember looking into the new media program at Ryerson and finding that I couldn’t afford it. I talked to my dad about my future education plans on Wednesday night, and I said I’d probably just end up dragging my way towards a BA in sociology or English (or both) at the University of Toronto because I’m already registered there (and because it would be easier to go part-time, which is all I’ll be able to afford in the long term without borrowing money from my parents [or the government, although they weren’t offering much last time I checked]).

I’m not sure where I was going with this digression. So we’ll just leave it at that, I think. I’ll try to write something after my first shift at the juice bar (and first shot of wheatgrass juice) on Saturday night.