In a cubicle, no one can hear you scream!

If only I really were in a cubicle so that title would actually be, you know, appropriate. I don't even get a cubicle, which now that I think about it is kind of degrading. If I'm going to work a cubicle job, the least they could do is put me in an actual cubicle.

Today I did more work in the first six hours than I did all of last week. It totally seems like a good gig from the outside. Surfing the web, playing Yahoo games and getting paid for it, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. If I have to put on a fucking white shirt and sit in a fucking office with the fucking fuckhead--ahem--employees, at least give me enough fucking work to do to keep me from going fucking insane! I'm afraid my resentment toward this company about my previous experience here is going to come out in some ugly way. Like someone will do something and I'll get all rude and self-righteous about it. Although I'm considerably more free than some of the others here, I still kind of need this job for at least another week. I'm telling my friends I'm going to leave after three weeks, but I don't know. The extra week's pay would really come in handy once I'm back in Korea. One more unpleasant week here will make the first month back a lot more comfortable. Guess I'll wait to make that decision until it's absolutely necessary.

Readingwise, I'm on an existential/meta-physical bent. Last night I picked up Siddhartha from Powell's, and I borrowed the copy of Illusions that I gave Ryan several years ago. Both books are really short. It's all part of the Grand Scheme, but only indirectly.

Hey look! It's 3:57! More later,

8:20 am and I'm beginning another sitting around day. Hopefully they'll get some work for me soon. It almost feels as if I should be doing something that I'm not. maybe there's some place to get files to work on that I don't know about but the supervisor assumes I do. Although I think that can't be true since the other employees are surfing and playing games as well. I gotta say, the novelty of this is wearing off pretty fast. This is almost a Korean kind of work ethic, where it doesn't matter so much how much work you do, only that you show up and put in the hours. I keep imagining myself telling Office Team I want to leave this assignment because it's so ridiculous, but in reality I don't think I'll mess with this. If I leave, sure I'll have time to myself, but I won't be making any money either. No, putting up with this will not only make the rest of my summer better, but will make my first month back in Korea a lot more comfortable as well.

That sound you hear is me sucking it up.

Looks like I've been averaging about one new post per week. Not too bad I guess, considering there hasn't been that much going on to write about. Here's a few headlines though:

Had my physical exam yesterday. Still haven't got the (lack of) criminal history report back yet. I did send in the other documents, and they have started the visa process in Seoul.

I'll be returning to SF on August 18th in the evening. I'll have one day to get my E-2 visa, then one last day to do a little more sightseeing in SF (*cough*Castro*cough*)

I wasn't going to do it but I couldn't resist. I broke down and got the new Harry Potter on Saturday. I'm on about page 200, and it's been pretty good so far. I do think Dumbledore's going to die, but if you know, don't tell me. Shhh!

And now finally, last Thursday I went to Office Team and got re-registered with them. I was getting a little bored frankly, and there was no way my money was going to last. Sooo...back to temping, at least um, temporarily. They had me do all their tests again, which I'd hoped to avoid, but oh well. I got 65wpm on the typing and hit something like 850-950 keystrokes per minute on the data entry. My Word score was 92 percent and Excel was 86 percent. Whatever. I don't care about those, but when one is being evaluated, one wants to do well, doesn't one? The whole process was a little dehumanizing. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't help feeling processed, like I was a product or a commodity, a set of fast fingers attached to a warm body.

That's not even the best part. The best part is the assignment they gave me. OT called on Friday and said they had work for me. They sent me to TRM corporation to help with a data entry/sorting project. See, I have something of a history with this company, which follows thusly:

The day I first moved to Portland, July 31st 1997, there was a construction accident at a new parking garage being built at the airport. A portion of the garage collapsed moments before my flight arrived. When I landed everything was in Chaos, and there was an extremely long queue for the taxis. I ended up sharing a Towncar with two other women who were going to Vancouver, Washington. A red-headed woman in the front seat asked me enough questions to find out what my deal was and when she found out I'd studied French told me she knew someone who'd gotten a job in Portland specifically because she spoke French. That company turned out to be TRM. I went through the application and interview process only to be passed over. (Something about not being experienced, and my French not being up to speed.) Still determined--having I might add, considerably more spunk back then than I now posess--I found out somehow that I might be able to work there as a temp and gain entry to the company through a sort of back-door.

So temp I did, through Volt Services. They seemed surprised to see me, but I was happy to be working, and determined to do a good job. What made it considerably more difficult however was the 6am start time. in order to get there on time from my house in north Portland, I had to leave at 4:45 and catch a 75 down to Hollywood, then hop on a 12 to 57th, and finally a 71 to 121st and Prescott. Even then I still had to walk about a third of a mile to get to the actual office. If got up on time and made all my connections I could just barely make it on time. More often than not I rolled in anywhere from 6:10-6:30, or even around 8:00 a couple of times.

The position I'd originally applied for was customer service, the job I did as a temp was meter reading. That is to say, all the drug stores, grocery stores, and ma & pa convenience stores owned by Mrs. Park and Mr. Patel that had TRM copy machines had to be called once a month to get the number off the copy counter for billing purposes. It was an obviously thankless task that no one who wasn't desperate for a job would do. Enter me. I did the job for three months and long story short, screwed up so many times, particularly with regards to punctuality, and was treated so poorly by the other staff that I eventually decided I had no interest in working for them on a full-time basis. When I was hired by AAA I was more than happy to leave TRM behind. The ironic thing is, a week after I left I got a call from TRM offering me a full-time job. I turned them down.

Fast forward to now. When Office Team told me where I'd be working I actually made an audible groan which I tried to turn into a noise of polite recognition. With some trepidation I re-entered TRM world yesterday at 10:30, following my Doctor's appointment. Surprisingly, the entire call center is gone. I have to confess part of me hopes the entire call center operation was either eliminated, or moved to Bangalore and that all the former CSA's were laid off. However it's probably a much safer bet that they expanded it and moved it to another office here in Portland somewhere. I'm working in the same space where there used to be rows of cubicles but it's now just a wide open area with a few folding tables in one corner with computer terminals on top, and that is where I'm working. Well, I say working in a very loose sense because I've yet to do any work here. All morning in fact I've been writing this blog entry and getting paid twelve dollars an hour for it, thank you very much. All day yesterday, after they showed me what I'd be working on we just sort of sat around waiting to get some work. Again, whatever. If they're happy to pay me to sit on my ass and write snarky blog posts about them, I'm happy to be of service.

One could look at this in a Cosmic, thermodynamic sense. That is, in any given office, there is going to be a certain amount of sitting around. Maybe if they pay a bunch of temps to do the required sitting around the other employees will actually get more work done, thereby saving them money in the long run. Make any sense? I didn't think so either.

Here's another one for the Bright Ideas section. Over the past few days I've discovered podcasting. As usual with this sort of thing, I'm not an earlier adopter, but not exactly a latecomer either. Mostly the podcasts I like are actually radio broadasts that have been made available for download through RSS subscription. There are plenty of amateur casts out there though, and some audioblogs even. Naturally I was curious to see if there are any Korea related podcasts out there, and I couldn't really find anything, but did find Soju after the movie. It's apparantly just what it says it is. A bunch of people go out and see a movie then talk about it over drinks and give their soju enhanced take on it. I sort of liked that idea. So sometime yesterday I cooked up a big idea of my own: I'm thinking about doing a podcast aimed at the ex-pat community in Korea. There, whaddya think?

More details maybe? Ok. As one example, I (and possibly a co-host?) start with a bit of theme music, then spend the first few minutes talking about my week and sort of what's going on generally. Next is a quick update of news from Korea and internationally that is likely to affect foreigners residing in Korea. In the next segment there's a guest like a writer or artist for example. There could be a regular feature from a 'reporter' about culture, arts and entertainment in the capital, and then finally we bring in a musical guest which could be either korean or foreign. The podcast would air once a week and would be about an hour long, or perhaps a little shorter. Alternatively, a 30 minute cast with only one guest and one extra segment seems a lot more doable.

So that's my idea. I have more thoughts about this, but I actually have to get going now. More later maybe....

Yesterday should have been my first time teaching the volunteer class out in Gresham. I say should have been because when it was time for class the original teacher showed up and we decided to let her teach and I would observe for the time being. While I don't mean to knock the teacher-I mean she's a volunteer and all, and hasn't had experience or training in ESL-watching the class made me realize just how far I've come as a teacher. Next week it will be my turn to teach and the other one will watch me. I think it will be a good lesson. Well, I don't want to jinx myself, but you know, I have some confidence let's say.

I guess I didn't explain this thing I'm doing. See, while I was still at my parents' I looked on Craigslist and found a volunteer opportunity to teach English to immigrants through Mt. Hood Community college. Since I will be in town this summer with not much to do I thought I'd have a go at it. Anyway, it will be a good opener to what I hope to do next year, volunteering to work with immigrant and refugee populations. It's part three of my grand scheme: "get a cause."

I'm hitting a nooner today then meeting up with Ryan later. If it doesn't rain we're going to take his bike out to the waterfront to see what it can do.

I love blogging, even though I've been a bit less diligent about it lately. It's like sending e-mail to yourself, which in my case I may as well be really doing. I suppose I shouldn't so cavalierly assume no one is reading this, someone might see it, and I know some people have. I doubt I get much repeat business though.

Went to church today at MCC. And that's all I have to say about that. I spent my afternoon riding a bus with Ryan. He has a friend who's a bus driver and he goes and hangs out on her route sometimes on the weekends. It was ok. Tri-met isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but you know, I've certainly had worse afternoons and worse bus rides so I'll take it.

I'm afraid the next few weeks are going to get really boring. Guess it's up to me to make sure that doesn't happen.

Portland!

I realize the updates aren't coming so fast & furious these days. But it's not as if anyone would have noticed anyway. Portland is fantastic and I'm so happy to be back here, if only for a few weeks. I got in on Tuesday. Once the initial lift of being back here wore off I started getting kind of panicky and depressed. I don't know what all that was about but I pretty much just needed to get over myself, which I did. I've been staying with Matt & Cyndy & Chloe and that has been great, but today I moved into a room I'm going to sublet while I'm here. I love my friends, but I just couldn't freeload off them for almost two whole months. Besides, Chloe can get a little intense sometimes.

So this afternoon I met Bobby, my new temporary roommate. He seems really nice and open and relaxed, and has generally good energy. I'm sure living there will be good.

Oh and I finished my book last night. See, I got The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Murakami when I was in Moscow. I began reading it at Coffeemania just before the beginning of my trip to St Pete's and Estonia. I continued reading on the train, on the ferry to Helsinki, on the flight to San Francisco, on the flight to Phoenix, and on the flight to Portland. So I've taken this book and this story half-way around the world with me, and now I'm done. Kinda cool huh?

Actually my life seems to be working out a little like this book at the moment. There are all kinds of strange coincidences, like Matt & Cyndy bought the house right next door to a house where I lived for a while back in 1999-2000, and Bobby works at a cafe where my old rommate Allison used to work. These different sort of random people seem to be getting put into my life at different times. Each one brings new knowledge and new energy to me. I may be making too much of this, but it does seems like I'm on some sort of journey of self-discovery here. Or maybe not. I guess that's really up to me isn't it?

Pictures to come......