Disincentive

2nd day at work went fairly well - I had my supervisor break down the tasts step by step and wrote them down. This is both for me, until I get it down to a reflex, and for my eventual successor. She only has approval for a 2 week assignment right now, but if the workload is as backed up as she says, she's eventually going to need a more permanent assistant, and this way she doesn't have to reinvent the wheel training them. This was great, right up until her supervisor walked by and said "You know, I hired him so that *he* would do the work." Dick.

Met with Christina Sosa for lunch after, as well as her friend John, who is studying for the Bar for the first time. Without having the test in front of me, there wasn't much she could tell me, but she did give a pep talk, including pointing out that I should stop saying I "wasn't even close." I passed over 2/3 of the exam. The next one will be different subjects, and I will be better at analysis. Or something.

Realistically, now that the initial disappointment has worn off, I'm mostly okay. I am not a Special Snoflake, I never get to say I passed the Bar on the first try. The only lingering worry is that I will be that woman who had to take the thing 17 times.

Christina talked about her current job. Her dream had always been to be a D.A., and there is a position coming up in Kern county or similar. To take any D.A. position would be at least a 40k pay cut for her. Prior to law school, she had never made more than 36k, so this is a strange new world for her.

Tim came over in the afternoon. In very nearly the same breath, he told me 1) that he'd spoken to Nathan, the apt manager, and offered to pay the pet deposit if I could have a dog, and 2) he had been to court over some traffic infractions from years ago. There were 2 of them, the court reduced a bunch of fees, waived failure to appear charges, etc., so he just needs to come up with $600 in the next 90 days. I really cannot fathom how these things happened on the same damn day. Maybe, if it had been a few days since his court appearance, I could rationalize it, he could have forgotten, something.

I got a call from my rep at the temp agency - some hedge fund in La Jolla was at a deadline, and needed people to come in and work more. Having already worked today, and being still sick, I was going to turn it down, but Tim insisted I take the job. You never know where the career opportunities are going to come from, that's $70 more than you had before, etc. I couldn't help but feel like his insistence was less about this being a career opportunity, and more so he would feel less guilty when/if he needs to ask me for money again. If that's the case, I feel like I'm working so that he doesn't have to, and the idea that I work while he gets the night off to go do what/whoever rankles.

The job itself was boring. We were supposed to be registering names into a tax certificate bidding site, then entering bulk bids on their behalf. The site got mad at the company for doing this, though, so kept shutting us out. At one point, everything went down, so we were literally just sitting there. The one plus side was that I got to talk to other grads at various stages along their careers who were out of work. In fact, there were more intelligent, qualified people working nowhere temp jobs there than there were people with B.A.'s (or A.A.'s) in impractical majors. While I don't like that folks in the former camp are having to work these nowhere jobs, t's nice to have reminders that no, it's not just my personal failings keeping me from starting a career. It is still frustrating that folks in the former camp are having to work the same nowhere jobs as people in the latter camp. It disincentivises education and effort.

I finally called it quits just after 11 and stumbled home. Tim was online when I looked.

Sick

Woke up at 5:30, sweating again, hacking. Work was a little better – I was flying solo, but I managed to get most of my work done. Tim called just before I left for the day, and then again later that afternoon. He asked about the temp job, and when I asked him about his night, he gave me the nervous laugh that meant he had hooked up with someone, but didn’t want to say anything. I’m glad he’s out hooking up. I will be very upset if he finds himself in dire financial straits and comes to me.

Largely did nothing for most of the evening. Linda called me about working the temp job again, but I declined this time. My health is worth more than $70. I finally decided to go to the gym and the store later, but had a couple false starts and only made it to the store. On the plus side, the skin test for TB seems non-reactive, so yay for that.