MattY

I have been at this job for a couple of months now - maybe more, and yet i'm still not quite sure whether i feel any better or any worse.

These people are so seriously unpredictable it's not funny. I will walk in one day and everyone will be as nice as cherry pie and i will have a great day. The next day i will walk in and everyone is as cold as ice. And it really pees me off! I'm one of those people where you either like me or you don't and I hate having an in between. If you don't like me that's fine but just don't have anything to do with me and i will do the same. If you like me then that's great! Just don't decide to hate me for one day and bitch about me, then like me again - that ain't right.

I never really realised just how much this job threw me off guard. I hadn't worked in retail in such a long time and I forgot what the politics were like. I am getting much better and i feel like I can stand on my own ground now to a certain degree - but I still don't know everything and it can still be quite frustrating - for both myself and I'm sure it can be frustrating to the manager when i ask what i have to do again. But she also needs to remember that i am not a full timer, just a casual! For example i haven't worked for nearly a week at this job and last week i was just out on the floor anyway - it's quite rare that i do anything else so when someone asks me to do something complicated i just don't know how!

I actually had a chat with the 2IC weeks ago after he cornered me and asked how i was enjoying it, and it was pretty obvious i hated it at the time as i could not hide my disgust at the people working there and i found out that he told this guy who then came up to me and told me i had to hold my own. It's this twisted circle of gossip that just constantly peeves me. Someone gossips or bitches about this person and then some drama happens to this other person and it keeps going round. GET A LIFE PEOPLE! THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO LIFE!There's this guy who i have decided i really don't like at all and try to ignore him at all times. This guy is one of those full timers whose life is revolved around his job at this store and who comes in on his day off because he 'is bored.' I actually find it quite sad in a way, i wonder if he is lonely or whether he has a life outside work so he can get some fresh perspective, but then again when he does say to me 'I know what goes on in this store before anyone does' and brags about how he knows someone in each section and goes out with them and knows all the gossip as a snide but subtle warning to me it just makes me hate him again.
What has also thrown me off is that they have recently hired a new girl to work in our section, which is great because they definitely need more staff.

So anyway i have only worked with her once but i didn't get very good vibes from her. People were joking that there is this rivalry between us and i hate to admit it but there was. She kinda annoyed me because she was taking my jobs and had been there for only 2 weeks at the time and acted like she was queen bee! And what annoyed me was that she made no effort to introduce herself or really chat with me, which i thought was odd because she is knew and i certainly made the effort to get to know people when i was new! I know i'm sounding like a hypocrit so I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and be nice to her, after all she is new and i know how hard that can be.

I am getting to the point where i just don't care for it all - i go to work, i do what's needed to be done and then i go home. I don't live in everyone elses pockets, i don't go out with them after work (I'm not invited anyway,) i don't ask for their life story anymore, i just pretty much keep to myself and i honestly think that's how i like to be now. I am happy spending the day putting the stock out and cleaning up the shelves - i don't have anyone to deal with barr myself and even though it is slightly lonely and isolating it is better than working in the backroom where the action is. AVOID AT ALL TIMES!
When will my career become more than DVD's and become something with depth and meaning? Something i am passionate about and love?

Such a long time since my last blog - i know, my bad!
So i have been doing some networking from some old contacts to see if they need any help during the Christmas season - generally Christmas is a great time for people like me who are struggling to get in the field because people take holidays and time off and then it is people like me who takes their job and if they like me then they might hire me for something else.
So far no replies but it is still very early days!
I actually saw another contact of mine at work the other day which was random. He works for one of the free to air channels and i have emailed him quite a few times to keep in touch and have asked him whether anything is going. Of course he managed to dodge the subject which was a shame because i just wanted to hound him for information. I guess though i have become so obsessed with getting a job that i have forgotten about everything else that life has to offer. He asked me what other things i was doing with my life, you know activities etcetera, and i had nothing to say. My mind went completely blank. Getting a career and a full time proper job is all i think about. Everytime i meet or see someone who i think is potential i think of ways to introduce myself or give them my card - every opportunity i get i try and take. Every day i am thinking of new ways and smart ideas. I have become totally obsessed. Oh my god. I need to get life. I even have a dam blog about it! HAHA
And after i finish this blog i am applying for another job! GEES!
I guess that's what you call determination.
I went to see 'The devil wears prada' the other day and by gosh it was good! Once again it made me really motivated. If you havem't seen it - stop what you are doing and drive to the cinemas ASAP! Meryl Streep is fantastic. A little ridiculous that Anne Hathaway can just strut into the most well known magazine and land a job - but hey it's a movie they have to stretch the truth a bit. It also made me re think my options with Sticks and Stones magazine. I emailed the facilitator because there was talk of me getting paid to sit as the editor of the magazine and i thought that was so great because i would finally get a paycheck for something in the field and it would be great experience and great for my resume to actually hold an editor position. And i thought that seeing i was the only person of the originals to stick it out even after all the bitchinbg they did about me i kinda deserved it.
Apparently i don't. I got a reply saying i will not be taking the editorship and i will not be getting paid. I am so so torn. I think i have to draw a line with these people, because i know career wise i won't get anything out of it and i also feel they have really just used me. I am starting to wonder whether i should continue with these people or not? On the one hand yeh it's great that i am getting more stuff published, but on the other hand do i need to draw a line with companies to say there is a point where i will not work for free anymore? Otherwise if i don't will they just keep on using me because they know they can?
The hardest thing is that i have no one experienced in the industry i know i can talk to or ask for advice. Everyone else i trying just as hard as me to lcimb some sort of ladder.
What do you think? Should i stick it out with the magazine or tell them i won't work unless i get some sort of payment? HELP!On another note keep a look out on for the next instalment of my 'Great Expectations' column. Should be up soon.

The response to Sticks and Stones magazine has been really great. It was weird seeing it on the streets when i passed it the other day; it had been quite a while since something that i had helped create had been available like that.

I got an email from the facilitator telling me about the positive response we had gotten. We even got an email from a politician who totally supported it and gave us the thumbs up! And i thought all politicians were selfish a-holes - maybe i have just been proved wrong!

I feel like this thing was my baby and i am so proud of it. I shows me that i can do whatever i want if i put my mind to it - and yeh i might not be the greatest at whatever i might do - but i still give it a shot! I just want to rub it in everyone's face that has shut the door on me and show them that i can do it!
In terms of my retail job - once again I HATE IT!

So much to say, so little time. So many reasons to dislike it, so little reasons to like.

I just wish these people would get a reality check and realise that it's just retail and the world won't fall apart if they get one order wrong or there is a customer complaint. The problem is that everyone has an opinion on how the store should work, an opinion on every person who works there and everyone sticks their noses into everyone elses business where it isn't needed.

The worst part is, and i don't know whether i have said this already, but what they hey i'll say it again if i have, is that the girlfriend of the boss works at the store too. This woman is the rudest, bossiest, most arrogant piece of work i have ever met. She thinks that she can get away with anything because she is the girlfriend. The sad fact is, she is right. Suffice to say i don't get along with her.

Words really can't express how unhappy i am at this place. I have to stay though because i need the money. I have so many 21st coming up, my sisters wedding, her birthday, my boyfriends birthday, not to mention Christmas! I need the money.

If only i had a great journalism job where i had a regular PAID column like my sex and the city stye one and where i was back doing my party reporting and doing other bits and bobs for television, print or fashion.
I'm not going to give up, but damn it's a hard industry to break.

So i have been doing work with an Aids organisation in Sydney to launch a new magazine called Sticks and Stones magazine. This all started from my work with another popular free gay magazine where i wrote and edited storied for a fold out section which was based on the gay youth of Sydney.

There are wafts of morbidness in the air tonight as news spread that Steve Irwin died today and after watching a program on him and the late Don Chipp, the founder of the Australian Democrats who passed away in late August, I can't help but start to think of the fragility of life.
In many ways, it makes me so much more determined to get out there and make those dreams happen.Life seems to be such a short journey, and in the blink of an eye a whole era can pass you by. How bittersweet.
I feel like i have wasted the last couple of years of my life. Funny me saying that, as I am only 20! Maybe not wasted, but didn't take the opportunities that were presented to me at certain times. If only i had, maybe i would be in a better position in the journalism field? But you can't 'if only' your life away can you?

I have managed to get myself a job at a local music , DVD and accessories store through a family member of mine who has a friend who works there.
Thank god, i know! So i started off being really perky and i wanted to make friends and make an effort. This is proving harder than once thought.
I forgot the feeling you get when you first start at a new job; You know no-one, no-one is ever honest about anything, and you are so slow its not funny.