Monday, May 23, 2011

Love? Money? Love of money?

I have a feeling I'm about to make a poor decision but I'm not sure yet. One way or another though, tomorrow I will have a job.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Online Dating

I don't feel I actually need to write anything more. I have decided to try it, as it is really just one more adventure most people have that I have not and I do hate being left out. But I can't see this ending well.

Addendum:

I lied, I'm going to write more. I have thus far been opposed to online dating for several reasons, but my family ganged up on me and my grandmother, convinced my destiny lies in internet dating, handed me a pile of cash to sign up for JDate. I think they're not all that pleased with the long line of Aryans I have gotten involved with.
My biggest issue with online dating is that it seems like such an ineffective way of finding a good match. It's like making a shopping list and then going out and instead of finding the man/woman of your dreams, it's finding the man/woman of your list. I feel like I've probably dated a large number of people though few of them for very long, but they've all been quite varied. I certainly can't fit them into a type, which I feel is what I is happening when I am shopping for men on a website--looking for ones who fit the type I think I want. But the one relationship/love I've had thus far in my life didn't have ANY of the qualities on my Everything I Want In a Boyfriend list and probably had half the ones on my list of Everything I Never Ever Want in a Boyfriend. We shared nearly no common interests, didn't like the same food or the same places or the same people or the same activities. If I had just seen a profile on the internet, we definitely would never have even met, and I would have missed out.
On the other hand awhile ago I dated a guy who had almost everything on the Everything I Want list. Theoretically, with so many qualities on my little list, the perfect man. An internet profile on this guy would have sold me. But in person I felt pretty much nothing for him, even though I wanted to.
So how can this system possibly work? Especially when what you think you want and what you actually want are so rarely in sync. Or maybe that's just with me.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Cricket

First of all, I would like to say that if not for the Craigslist babysitting business, I would never have found myself in this Cricket mess. So it all comes back to lay the blame at Craigslist's feet. Clearly.

Remember, yesterday morning I'd had that terrible business with ending up in the middle of nowhere and having to reschedule at the woman's house. That went fairly well, it was a little odd, but then, I suppose that was to be expected. The only terrible disaster in that was that they had a small dog, and the small dog LICKED me.

I may never recover.

Important background information: I had been given one of those little internet USB keys from Cricket that lets you have internet service anywhere as long as you pay the monthly data fee or whatever and the key is in your computer. We know all about these, because of the time Victoria got one in France from SFR and ended up being charged with something like $2500 in penalties and fees over a three month period. I decided it was a great idea to try and get this Cricket key activated and have internet at home so I could do things like apply to jobs and actually know when someone has responded and wants to know when to interview me. Also to look at Facebook.

This was obviously a terrible idea. First of all, we have the precedent of Victoria. Second of all, the internet and Google maps or whatever told me that there were in fact no Cricket stores anywhere nearby for me to go and talk to someone to find out what activating it entailed. The closest one as far as I could tell was in Silver Spring, MD, which is down the beltway a bit and EVER going on the Beltway is a terrible idea.

I hung on to this key for two weeks before the business with the babysitting. As it turned out, the woman and her kid were in Silver Spring, MD. What luck! I could go meet with her and then head right over to the Cricket place and sort this internet thing out. I would even make it out to Rockville in time for dinner with Ellen and her friends. Amazing.

Google maps told me the Cricket was only 10 minutes away from this woman's house, and in the correct direction too, so I wrote down the directions and headed out on my happy way.

To be totally fair, which I feel I must be, Cricket really was probably only ten minutes away. But I had to get on the beltway again and then I had to turn around in this loop and then I had to go up some street and then down another but I couldn't turn where I wanted to so the directions said make a U-turn on a certain street that as far as I can tell does not in fact exist and so I turned around twice and then got disoriented and eventually I found a nice little parking space and headed into the store.

Turns out Cricket is in WEST Silver Spring, which apparently means that everything is in Spanish. As it turns out I have not forgotten all of my Spanish, which is good, because I needed it when I walked in the door. But this is all only tangentially relevant.

I didn't completely know where I was. I didn't really know how to get back from where I was. I didn't even know if I really wanted to be wherever it was that I was. But I waited 45 minutes to speak with someone about my little key. When I finally did, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I have this key, and I want the most basic internet plan you have which appears to be $40/month. Is there anything basic-er?
Girl: No, that is the very cheapest plan we have to offer.
Me: Are there any fees involved, whatsoever, outside of this $40?
Girl: No, there are no fees at all. You pay $40, that is all.
Me: What about activation fees?
Girl: No, no fees.
Me: What about CANCELLATION fees?
Girl: No, like I said before, there are no fees.
Me: What about fees for if I go over the allotted data? What about THEN?
Girl: Seriously. There. Are. No. Fees.
Me: Okay but see this one time Victoria had an internet key and she got charged like $2000.
Girl: ...excuse me?
Me: So one more time, just because I like hearing you say it, are you sure, absolutely positive, that there is NO WAY that I will ever, under any circumstances that I cannot yet imagine, have to pay FEES of ANY KIND?
Girl: Don't even give us a credit card. Hand me $40 in cash and you will have internet. If you don't pay next month, we just cancel it. No fees.
Me: But Victoria...SFR...
Girl: Yes, you are confusing me with that, I have no idea what you are talking about but why don't you just give me $40.
Me: Okay fine I will. But more questions first!
Girl: ...
Me: What happens when it doesn't work? Who do I call?
Girl: What do you mean "when it doesn't work?" It will work.
Me: No it won't. So give me the number I call for when it doesn't work.
Girl: Okay, I'll write the number here. But...it works. I mean, there's no reason it shouldn't work.
Me: You don't understand. I touched it.
Girl: True. I don't understand...
Me: Okay, so when the software doesn't install correctly, can I get my money back?
Girl: Seriously, it IS GOING TO WORK. No money back, but bring your whole laptop and everything into the store and we will make it work. I swear. But that won't happen. Because it will work.

I took the key, the receipt, the tech support number, and left. Only to remember I didn't know where I was. Ellen kindly used her phone to send me directions and I arrived, disoriented and exhausted at dinner only 45 minutes late.

That night, I plugged the key into my laptop. The software installed, the internet connected, IT WORKED. IT ACTUALLY WORKED. I was completely and utterly dumbfounded. I barely slept all night just thinking about the fact that I had paid for this technology, and it had worked.

The next morning I leapt from my bed all excited to plug in my working internet.

It did not work. I tried again. It did not work. Again...not working. Again and again and again and again.

I pulled out the number I'd made the girl write down and called it. The automated system ran through my choices. I did everything I was supposed to, chose broadband questions, entered my number...and the system said politely, "I'm sorry, I cannot process your request at this time. Goodbye." And hung up on me. I did this three more times. The fifth time I called I punched all the numbers at once and got a real live person who explained to me that all their computers with broadband support were down and they just could not help me.

I left the house in a rage.

That night, the internet worked for no reason. I was joyful. The next morning, the internet did not work. Rage. That night, the internet worked. The next morning, RAGE. Apparently Cricket broadband only worked AT NIGHT.

Now though, we seem to be running more consistently. It had better stay that way.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Craigslist

In my job search, I have spent a lot of time on Craigslist, which isn't always the most reputable or safe place to go around looking for jobs. I've found some interesting stuff on there.

For example, I found my job with the Uniformed Services University there. I applied for an Assistant position that had only a small description, received a call from a man asking me to come in for an interview, things you might expect. Except that we must remember that he was a total stranger from the internet, and he informed me that since I did not have military clearance I would not be able to get onto the facility grounds on my own and I needed to MEET HIM IN A PARKING LOT somewhere.

Warning bells, anyone? I admit, I thought about it. But I wanted mooooneey. So I said, "Sure! I will meet you in a parking lot somewhere whenever you want." He told me he drove a gray Scion.

I got directions, and on the appointed day and time I showed up in the parking lot and pulled in behind a gray Scion. I could not see the driver from my angle, he was just large and shadowy. He made a gesture/signal out the window, and pulled away. I followed. We went through security and down many winding paths (place is larger than you might think) and into a parking garage. Down, down, down, all of the floors until my cell phone lost reception and we were alone in the very bottom, under ground, with absolutely no one else around as it was a weekend.

This is not a super situation for young females to get themselves into, and yet...there I was.

As we know, I was not violently murdered, I was given a pretty sweet job, so it all turned out rather well. Still, though, not one of my more brilliant moves.

A few days ago I applied for a job I found on Craigslist as a babysitter. The mother decided she wanted to meet me. Before replying to her, I had a sudden moment of lucidity. I talked to my father. "Father, do you feel the odds of me being violently murdered, chopped in pieces, and having my extremities hidden in a freezer and dropped in the Chesapeake are high or low if I go to this internet stranger's house?"
My father said, "I just watched that movie about the Craigslist killer. But you should do whatever you think is right. I have to go make chocolate chip ice cream now. Goodbye."

I wrote to the woman and told her I would prefer we met somewhere public. She suggested some gym/rec center she takes her kid to and sent me the link to their web page. I copied the address off the bottom and put it in mapquest. It was quite far away, but I figured whatever I can do it.

So this morning I set off, on the Beltway (going on the Beltway for any reason is ALWAYS A TERRIBLE IDEA) going EAST. Long story short, I drove a million miles, got off in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, found the address listed after about eighty million u-turns and circling and shouting, and discovered that the address did not belong to anything remotely like a rec center or gym. I called the woman, who informed she had absolutely no idea where I was but it was certainly not even remotely near where SHE was, which was up I95 somewhere.

NOT HAVING A GPS, I of course had no way of figuring out how to get to her, so we had to reschedule. "Can you at least get home?" she asked. "Oh yes, of course," said I. We hung up.

I had come on the Beltway EAST so I figured all I had to do was look for the Beltway going WEST.

There WAS NO BELTWAY GOING WEST. There were only North and South. So more u-turns and circles and shouting ensued and eventually I decided the most logical course of action was to take the South and hope life eventually worked itself out. Except then there was construction and I got confused and nearly missed it and had to switch lanes suddenly and NO ONE WOULD LET ME because they're all BASTARDS and so I ended up shouting obscenities out the window and getting honked out and then shouting some more but I made it onto the Beltway and then cried a lot and only eventually made it home.

And this evening I get to go to this woman's house to try again.

I hope she doesn't murder me.