Sunday, March 18, 2012

Down and Out in Hipsterville

It may come to this...
"So one day Jimmy brung his wife inta work, and man! Was she ever ugly! Next day, when Jimmy come in, I let him have it: 'That's some wife you got there! She's a real dog, Jimmy! D'you put her on a leash when you take her out? You keep her in a kennel while you're at work?' He didn't talk to me for maybe a year after that."

Darlene, my comrade at the reception desk, is recounting her days as a sawyer at a lumber mill in rural Oregon. As the mill's only female laborer, and only black employee, she tells me, it wasn't easy to prove herself and gain the grudging approval of her colleagues. With her skill for acerbic verbal jabs, steady work performance and willingness to punch out the odd good-ol'-boy who got a little too fresh with her, she eventually earned their respect. I'm pretty easygoing by nature, and the reception desk where we're sitting is light years removed from the mill, but I'm taking the story's message to heart: I definitely want to stay on Darlene's good side.

So far, so good. I don't seem to have offended her yet, though it appears she hasn't quite made up her mind about me one way or the other. The job is absurdly easy; aside from the occasional administrative task, I mostly just sit there. All Darlene asks is that I organize my breaks so that she can leave in time to catch her bus. She doesn't appear to care if I do anything else at all. As soon as I sit down in the morning, she encourages me to go upstairs and fix some coffee, or to peruse the goods at the grocery store across the street.

It's excruciatingly boring, but I don't care. It's work, and I'm broke. While the quest for a rewarding, meaningful, benefited job continues, in the meantime I'll take whatever the temp agency throws at me.

Which, so far, has not been much. Even though I try to reduce my expenses to rent, food and the occasional, modest social outing, the money I've earned temping so far has not come close to covering these costs.

I've never had much money, but I've rarely felt as aware of my relative poverty as I do right now. Which is perhaps not surprising, since up 'til now I've (sometimes unwittingly) managed to adopt the following strategies:

Free housing, South Sudan style
(1) Isolate yourself somewhere where there's almost nothing to buy.  I recommend South Sudan, small-town Michigan and the Canadian Arctic. That way, when the consumerism bug bites, at worst you'll drop two bucks on a pair of cheap flip-flops, a root beer float, or a bowl of caribou soup so bland you'll never be tempted to order one again.

(2) Work for food (and a place to crash). The digs might not be stylish, nor the grub gourmet, but hey- they're free. Get rid of housing and food expenses, and even the stingiest stipend starts sounding pretty good. 


Low-budget entertainment


(3) Surround yourself with people who are at least as reluctant to spend money as you are. In Missoula, some students I knew tried to survive for a week off of food scrounged from dumpsters, just for kicks. (Though they gave up after four days of nothing but bread, I was inspired by their dedication.) Our compound guard in Uganda, meanwhile, spent nothing. He lived off the harvest from his home village and was saving all of his earnings to begin to replace his family's livestock, which had been pillaged during the war there. After a chat with him, I felt guilty leaving the compound for a $5 dinner out in town. 


Alas, such techniques are not so readily employed in Seattle. First, there are plenty of pretty tempting ways to spend money here: on roller derby tickets, Asian foot massage, artisan beer tastings, writing workshops, trapeze classes, ski weekends, indie film fests, home canning lessons. I haven't been able to find a job that offers regular compensation of any kind, let alone room and board. And my friends here, lovely as they are, enjoy expensive cocktails and ski vacations and Groupon deals for rowing lessons. I can't blame them, but I can't always join them, either.

And so it's a relief when, before clocking out on Wednesday, Darlene tells me, "We'll miss you tomorrow." I'll be back on Monday for another three days at the reception desk, and apparently I've earned Darlene's approval. It ain't much, but these days, I'll take anything I can get.





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