The Jig is Up!

So...I've been known to be rash.  I've been known to get rashes.  I've been known to carry a radish where no one can see it. 
On Sunday morning, after much contemplation I came to a realization.  My birthday is a week from Thursday.  (This is Thursday, actually early Friday, that I'm writing this just to keep a sort of ontological time frame alive.)  It is my birthday and I am in fact turning thirty years old.  I don't mind turning thirty- it is not a birthday I shun.  I will continue to produce sperm four of five months after I'm dead, my patience seems to grow with age, and the dreams that have caused me the most pain seem to die peacefully and quietly in my sleep.  However, despite loads of cognitive dissonance, positive spin, and caffeine I cannot escape the fact that I despise working overnights.  I have worked them for four months now and during that time I have not had a single weekend evening in the City. 

It's allright to despise a job- however, I had to take a little step back at the cost/benefit analysis of my job.

Benefits.  I am guaranteed three (3) shifts a week at seventeen ($17) dollars an hour.  That means after taxes each week I take home $320 dollars.  My rent is $1200.  As my dear friend Teresa used to say: You do the math.

Further- I get no benefits (0).  No health, no vision, no dental.  I actually had to fly to St. Louis to have something on my eyelid looked at.  While I was assured that I would be reassessed after 3 months alas I have been put off.

My bellman, Ariel- on my friendster list!- has been promoted and replaced by a new bellman, Edmond, who while friendly is staggeringly lazy and of little help conversationally at 4 in the morning.  Tonight was the second time he asked to take his lunchbreak twenty minutes into his shift.  I cannot help but think that he is a factor in the remaining bloom drooping from the rose.

I cannot move up out of my job, it appears.  I'm invaluable.  Once upon a time I worked at a movie theater and came to the realization that a monkey could do my job, yet no monkey could be convinced to accept my job for the pay I was getting.  There's not a person on the staff, apart from the other night guy who would EVER, EVER change shifts with me.  The request would be greeted by polite incredulity and then outright laughter.  So, why on earth would they let me move up? 

So, on Sunday afternoon I phoned my manager and said I would no longer be working nights after this weekend.  To which he responded, can we talk about this Tuesday?  Tuesday came and went and at the end of the day I mentioned it, to which he responded, can I call you?  As I entered work tonight I discovered they are looking at applicants to fill my spot.  I am yesterday's news. 

And a huge part of this is- I really didn't want to work an overnight on my thirtieth birthday.  It just seemed too horrible to contemplate.  Either showing up battered drunk to work or sitting quietly behind the desk in the wee small hours of the morning quietly humming happy birthday as tears rolled down my face and my Slovakian bellman said in his deeply accented english "You should work in some other place.  You have skills.  You talk to people very very nice."

The thing is- the thing that hangs in my craw in all of this- is that I really like this hotel.  I will genuinely miss it.  I like the staff, I think the place is unbelievably gorgeous, I even liked my manager.  I just couldn't hack the nights anymore.  My gambit was that perhaps I was liked enough- my work admired enough- my ethic appreciated just enough- that they could move me to days or evenings.  Maybe just maybe they liked the Sprite in me. No.  I am Schweppe's ginger ale.  And in a shocking turn of events, I think I will be unemployed for my 30th birthday. 

Anybody up for coming to the beer garden on Thursday?

My love to you all, and look for my album in stores this February "There's a Radish in my Ass."

Also...jobs?  In New York City?