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Tropical Depression: a pottery barn
In between trying to get an extension on a Very Important Deadline, making things out of blueberries, slumping through my first East Coast Summer in 20 years (so humid), and keeping track of sand colored birds, I’ve been looking for a job. My bird job was seasonal, so I knew that there would be an End Date and that the birds would leave for their winter grounds even though, I am sure, they really liked me. I also thought I would be farther along with my project (or, like, done) and that I would be free to take a full time job anywhere and have all this academic work behind me. It hasn’t come close to working out like that but I seem to be at least staying afloat in my current sea of obligations, even if I can’t touch the bottom.
Anyway, I’ve been looking for a job in my field, which, for lack of a better description I’ll call “wildlife biology”. I did not expect to find much for the fall and winter and my expectations have been met. So I’m branching out.
Yesterday I applied for a job at a local fine arts ceramics studio. They had a help wanted sign out front and the job description was in a notebook page protector on the counter. “Must be comfortable with babies”, it said. It’s a customer service job, running the show room, packing orders, loading the kilns, that sort of thing. The studio is known for their child’s-footprints-in-clay thing, which is where the babies come into it.
It was not a standard job application. There was a section for interests and hobbies, a section to describe the regular physical activities that you enjoy, and a section that asked you to describe your work habits. That one kind of stumped me. I wanted to be completely honest so I started off with “fairly organized” but after that I couldn't think of anything else that qualified as a desirable work habit. So I continued with the application with the intention of revisiting the work habits section until I got distracted (Work Habit Alert!) and handed it in with only “fairly organized” listed. I didn't remember until I was driving away.
When they called me today to set up a time to come in and interview I was very surprised. When the owner said that my handwriting indicated that I would be good for the job I tried to remember what my handwriting looked like yesterday, but I took it as a good sign. I’ll interview and try to appear fairly organized at the very least. Who knows, maybe I will even be able to pull off “comfortable with babies”.
