Mark’s progress: Manchester, TN

Mark spoke to me from Manchester, TN this evening.  He said he has finally gotten into cold weather.  I asked him if he had any stories to report and he said that at one point today, traffic was so packed together that the trailer of a semi bumped and scratched the housing for one of his side mirrors.  That’s pretty tight! Continue reading

Outside my window

I don’t know if I mentioned that I am working in downtown Portland now and I am able to do all kinds of “People Watching”.  Our office is right on the sidewalk behind City Hall, and there are floor to ceiling windows, not only completely around our office (including out to the lobby), but also all across the lobby entrance.  So what do I see? Continue reading

Work and school

If you’ve been following for the last few weeks, you know that I’ve been trying to get hired as a receptionist (or client services professional) at H&R Block for several weeks now.  I had the paperwork finished, but because the district manager died last month of a heart attack, my paperwork ended up getting booted out of the system.  The manager at the Tigard office, Diane, has been helping me get back into the system and I was finally hired on Monday, the 9th.  Tuesday was my first full day of work. Continue reading

Doesn’t anyone want to WORK any more?

Williams-Sonoma has been hiring for several weeks now and everyone they interview wants to work on the sales floor rather than in the stock room, even though we in stock earn $1 more per hour than the sales associates do.  Last week they thought they had a couple more people hired to work in stock, but the people never showed up and didn’t even call. Continue reading