Dear Rowan, May 13th Wichita, KS
So much for a wonderful new start. I
am in a rather horrid city, in a rathole of an apartment, and now I have proven
that it can always get worse. The only stupid job I could find in the dustbowl
of a town was at another call center. I couldn't even get a full time job
waiting tables. It seems like everything here that is hiring is just hiring
part time only, with flexible schedules so you really can't have two part time
jobs since they need to be "flexible" which translates as "you
need to be available any time of the day or night we decide to schedule you, on
short notice." So, needing to have some sort of income to make my status
here a little more stable, and having put in applications for weeks with no
response, I applied at a local call center, and of course they are the only
place to give me a job offer so far. I am going to keep applying at other
places, and hopefully about the time that the training is done at this place, I
will be able to quit and go to a better job before I ever have to take phone
calls. At least I will be working for a different company. They can't all be as
depressingly draining as my last job, right? The only really lucky part of all
this I suppose is that it is an inbound call center instead of an outbound one.
I don't think I could handle making outbound calls. And this is tech support,
so I shouldn't have to sell anything, which is good. I didn't like having to do
sales at my old job, and all I had to try and sell there were warranties on
things people already owned. And really, if you are calling for tech support
and you don't have a warranty, shouldn't you probably get one while you still
can since it looks like you are going to need it? Maybe if they had let me say
that instead of the usual "our warrantee is great" pitch I might have
sold more of them, or at least felt better about trying. Of course, that job
said it was just tech support too, so we'll see.
In other news, it appears that I
arrived in lovely flatville just in time for the tornado season. At least I
live in a basement apartment. It's almost like a storm cellar, I would just
need to board up the windows, and they are so small that wouldn't take much
lumber. At least it is flat enough that you can see anything coming from all
directions for miles. There really isn't a way for a storm to sneak up on this
city unless it forms right above us.
I'm sorry to be so negative, it is
just that I thought this was going to be a wonderful new start in a new city. I
had some sort of grand impression of getting out here and turning my life
around, really getting going out here, and instead I am living in a rathole of
an apartment instead of my cute little house, in a city where no one cares to
know who you are, even the neighbors, instead of in a town where you saw
somebody you knew who would say hello to you whenever you went out, and
starting almost the same exact job that I left, which I detested and quit. It
just feels like my lot in life is to be the nobody voice at the other end of
the phone, who customers can insult and abuse because they know they will never
meet me. But maybe this job will be different, maybe the customers will
actually be polite and understand that I am jut doing my job. Yeah right, but I
can hope.
So far I have not seen a tornado, and
I am just fine with that. I did see a truck that was in a tornado that came
through one of the next towns down the highway from here. Apparently tornadoes
can bring hail. Really big, golfball-sized hail. And lots of it. This truck had
no windows left intact, and the hood and roof looked like a giant blue golfball. It was like some very obsessive person attacked the truck with a
ball peen hammer, and did no stop hitting it until the whole surface of the car
was dimpled. The guy driving the truck said his house looked about the same on
one side, where the wind had been blowing all one direction really hard. And he
is going to need a new roof. But this guy is a local, and so where I was
horrified, he sounded like it was just something you did every year or two,
like mowing the lawn, (seriously, I think that is really as often as some
people around here mow their lawns).
Oh! Speaking of lawns, have I
mentioned the ticks yet? A few different people have told me that if I want to
walk in the grass, even a nicely mowed yard, I should wear high-top shoes or
better yet boots, and wear long socks, which I should pull up over my pants, so
that ticks can't climb up under my pants and bite me. And when I come back
inside, even if I did pull my socks up like that, I should still strip and check
to makes sure there are no ticks on me. They recommended that I get a full
length mirror since the apartment does not have one in it, just the little
mirror over the sink. They did reassure me that I only have to worry about
ticks during the spring, summer, and fall though, since it snows and freezes
here in winter so much that a tick couldn't survive. Somehow I do not find this
entirely reassuring.
I think I will just stay inside and
knit instead of going for a walk in the park for a while. If for no other
reason, I want to see if people really do pull their socks up over their pants
and wander around in public that way, or if the folks who told me that just
wanted to see if the new girl in town would make herself look ridiculous. I am
not sure what to knit though, since they tell me it gets hot enough here during
the summer that you can barely stand it,
but they did warn me not to wear shorts unless I was going to wear long socks
too, again for the ticks. Or I could wear skirts with pantyhose, apparently
they don't usually bite through pantyhose. I think I will just stay off the
grass. I suppose I could start knitting myself a winter set, since they say it
will get very cold here. But they did point out that I don't need to worry
about the snow piling up too bad, since the wind blows so often and strong here
that it just blows the snow away. Great. So no brimmed hats for the wind to
catch. Got it. But a hat, scarf, and mittens set could be fun. That will at
least give me a place to start, although it will not take me all the way to
winter to finish one cold weather set. Do you want a hat, or scarf, or mittens?
I could knit you something, just tell me what color or colors you like! Or if
you are really ambitious (and want an excuse to wander around a craft store)
you could go and find a yarn you like, then tell me the brand and colorway.
Just remember I am not in what I would call a crafting mecca here, so if you
can't find it in a chair store, I won't be able to find it here. I think I will
get the hat started right away, since I know it always helped me at my last job
to have knitting with me. It gave me something to focus on, which kept me
slightly saner than if I was just sitting staring at a cubicle and computer
screen all day. And of course no games or non-work-related things on the
computer either. Wouldn't want us to destroy the sense of monotony and angst by
amusing ourselves between calls.
How is life for you? I hope doing
much better than for me at the moment. How is work going? Has spring arrived
for you yet? They tell me that it is beginning to come to Wichita, but unless
you count the brown showing some green intermixed in the grass, I am not
convinced. There are very few trees to speak of, and it appears they must not
wake up until later in the spring. A few people have planted flowers in their
yards, but somehow store bought flowers just don't feel as springish as budding
trees or blooming daffodils. But maybe I just haven't found the right part of
town to wander for the view yet. I do need to go down to the river and explore
around there. I have been told of a nice park, with miles of jogging trails. I
really need to get back to jogging, it always makes the day better if I have
managed to fit in a run at some point. The trail is called, quite inventively,
"The Arkansas River Trail" and apparently there is even a troll to be
found somewhere along the ten miles of paths, so that gives me a bit of
something to hunt for. If I find him I will email you a picture.
And of course there are museums, and
theaters, and restaurants, and all sorts of other things that a city bigger
than Arbuckle has to offer. I have just been so tied up in apartment hunting,
then moving in, then job hunting, that I have not really given the better side
of Wichita a chance, since the job and apartment sides of Wichita have turned
out to be rather wretched at the moment. But things will get better, right?
They just have to, this is a new start after all. And new starts are good
things, so this will become good at some point here soon.
That's all for now, hopefully my next
letter will be to tell you that I got a wonderful job, found a gorgeous new apartment,
and have been cavorting around all the attractions that Wichita has to offer with a ravishingly handsome man.
Until then, stay safe and happy!
Your friend,
Emily
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