The Pros and Cons of Being a Working Woman

Now you have to understand that this list is from the point of view of someone who previously didn’t work for cough*her entire life*cough and is now a full time nanny. If you’re a little slow to the pick up, that someone is me. Your pros and cons list might be extremely different from mine. And probably way better too. Because everyone thinks they’re so frickin’ great these days.

Pro: I get to play and be silly.

Con: I have to wake up at an hour where playing and being silly is the equivalent to death.

Pro: Kids are super honest and you always know where you stand with them.

Con: I’d rather not know.

Pro: I don’t have to get dressed up.

Con: I don’t have to get dressed up 😦

Pro: I meet lots of fun kids every day.

Con: Fun kids can be flu carriers. Not fun.

Pro: I get to eat like a kid!

Con: I have to walk like a kid.

Pro: I don’t really have to work out because I’m on my feet all day.

Con: When I come home I want to murder everyone.

Pro: I make my own money!

Con: I have to spend my own money 😦

What’s the best thing about your job? What’s the worst?

The Freakin’ Weekend

When I see someone that I know downtown:

If one of us suggests going for Chinese buffet:

When I meet new people and they find out that I don’t have a job and they ask what I do all day:

Anytime that someone suggests doing something that sounds lame and says, “It’ll be fun!”:

If we go to a party:

If I see people from my volunteer job outside of work:

If we go out for brunch and I order a plate of fruit:

When someone arrives to a party and they bring booze:

When Paul asks me if I ate all the chips:

When I make a weekend to-do list:

If I go shopping, find a cute outfit, and someone tells me to have a nice day:

After we realize that we’ve been playing a Facebook game all day:

Doing Nothing Is Actually Something

I’ve had a great life. I don’t let things stress me out too much. I didn’t struggle in school and I’ve never had pressure to get a job. Often times, my friends would question my lifestyle, not able to comprehend it’s luxury. So wait, what do you do all day? I would get asked during summer vacation. You don’t have a job? Do you ever get bored?

I can’t explain to you the amount of people that would ask me these questions. Adults, teenagers, even the kids I babysat knew something was weird. I thought you were a grown-up. Grownups have jobs. Grownups also don’t have to babysit children, but look, here I am.

I would try to come up with things in my head, spitting out unimportant errands that I ran, trying to prove that I was doing something of worth while I wasn’t working. I put pressure on myself. Come on, sound impressive. Make excuses. Say you applied for jobs but no one was hiring. Something. ANYTHING.

I felt embarrassed to have free time. Any time I relaxed I felt a pang of guilt. People my age were on their feet working and I was tanning outside and then taking a nap.

However, in my mind, the embarrassment of being unemployed wasn’t half as bad as actually being employed. Trying to come up with activities that I did during the day surely wasn’t as painful as having to be somewhere and do work.

I never could understand the people who would work all day and then go out with their friends afterwards. Where is their energy coming from? Why are these people punishing themselves? But that’s how everyone was. No one had a similar situation to mine.

Moving to Canada kept me in the same situation. I didn’t have a work visa so I couldn’t actually get a proper job. I still volunteer twice a week and babysit occasionally, but I have lots of free time. Time to read and go online and play video games. Time to go on walks and bake and window shop. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I don’t think I’m wasting my life by enjoying myself. I’m just one of the lucky ones. I’m no longer going to feel embarrassed for having something that people wished they had.

Customer Service

Why do employees have to be nice to customers? It’s so fake. Customers obviously don’t want to be talked to because whenever they enter a store, their eyes dart around the room to avoid the burning gaze of the employees.

I realized today that I’m the worst at pretending I’m interested when I’m really not. I think the people I work with have taken note of this because I get comments like, “So have you worked in merchandise before?” or “Do you want to organize those t-shirts?”

I think my supervisors try to give me jobs where I don’t have to talk to people. Which is fine by me. I got to Windex some shelves today and it was definitely a highlight.

I love talking to my co-workers or should I say my co-volunteer-ers. I actually talk to them for most of my shift. Ignoring customers is a gift that I have. It’s just that whenever I ask someone if they need help finding anything, they say “nope” or “just browsing” or give me an intense death stare. So then I just leave and wander around some more. I don’t understand why no one needs my help, but then they’ll strike up a conversation with one of the other employees.

The thing is though, whenever people do have questions for me, I never know the answer. Unless it’s “How much does this cost?” I’m the champion of finding prices. People are always scared to pick up delicate things. Hell, I’ll juggle it if that’s how you find the price.

Could I force people to buy things if I break them trying to find a price for them?

I have a lot of good conversations with the people that I work with, but I don’t have anyone to make fun of customers with. I noticed this today actually. A guy with a really gross long beard came in the store and I needed to comment on it desperately, but everyone I work with is too nice. So I had to make fun of old long-beard in my head. It turns out that he didn’t speak English so I could have just said how gross his beard was to his face and smiled. But that’s just too mean. I would be like the Vietnamese women who give me pedicures. They say nice things to your face–“Ohh you so tall, you should be model” but then all of a sudden they start laughing and speaking Vietnamese. Borderline abusive behavior.

No one ever warns you about your feet and legs hurting from all that standing. Mine always hurt after I work. I feel like a modern day Cinderella but instead of an evil step-mother and step-sisters I have a supervisor and co-workers. And instead of being forced to clean, I’m forced to talk to random people about Native American art. My life is basically a Disney movie. Actually one of my co-workers told me that I reminded her of Cinderella. Not my top choice of Disney princesses, but I’ll take it.

The resemblance is uncanny. Especially when she's making that face.