(no subject)

[aprilstarchild]

I am realizing with a vague kind of horror that while I now have the money to buy Lolita and other awesome clothes, I have almost no time or energy to wear them.

There was a Lolita meetup today, and I totally forgot about it. And I have a new dress (my Innocent World dress I bought last month) to show off, even.

I spend most of my waking hours in my USPS uniform. And the rest in yoga pants and a t-shirt or tank top.

I remember being worried that I would lose interest in Lolita before I had the money to buy it, which didn't happen. Now I'm worried I'll lose interest in Lolita before I have a chance to wear it much. SIGH.

But yeah, Kate and I were people-watching from Sizzle Pie last night (man, that intersection near Powell's is fantastic people-watching on a Saturday night) and I was admiring dresses and had the thought of, shit, I have plenty of lovely dresses and never get a fucking chance to wear them anymore.

I used to dress up a little to go to Doctor Who Trivia night. Problem is that it's on Tuesdays, in North Portland. Tuesdays are fucking hell at work (especially now that I'm always doing full routes), so if I'm lucky I get out by six. Trivia starts at seven. Across town. I'm lucky if I make it at all--I didn't the last two weeks--and when I do, I'm still dirty from work.

ARGH. Here's hoping the NALC (my union, the National Association of Letter Carriers) is able to force the USPS to honor the contract they signed a year ago. People working my job title are supposed to be filling up open career positions, and the USPS has dragged its feet for so long that the NALC might sue. There's a guy at my station who's been a CCA for six years--he's literally first in line in Portland for a career position. Six years of working six-day weeks most weeks. Ugh. I was looking at our union's national magazine, and yeah, all over the country, the USPS is having a hard time keeping new people because many of them get sick of working so hard not knowing whether it'll pay off. Apparently one of the stations here in Portland turns over CCA's at a rate of 100%.

But once you're in a career position, you can elect to never go over or under about 40 hours a week (or you can elect to voluntarily work overtime). You get a regular, rotating day off in addition to Sunday. Oh, and you have a route. YOUR OWN ROUTE. That you are in charge of. Where you get to know everyone and their mailboxes and their dogs and change things if you want and you have your own case (aka workstation) and people decorate them, and you get sick leave and retirement and all that shit. Pretty fucking sweet.

At least I'm on an opt this week--where I'm covering a career carrier's vacation. It's in a pretty neighborhood. I'm looking forward to it. Doing a route for a week is a bittersweet thing, though, as it just proves to me how much more I'd like this job if I had my own route.

Comments

[eavanmoore.livejournal.com]

I remember working at Oaks Park over the summer so that I could earn money. I was doing that and freelancing at the same time, and I was making more money but I wasn't able to enjoy that summer at all. Pretty sad.

[blackdwarv.livejournal.com]

FWIW, we miss you at trivia... even if you are a little dirty.

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

My neighborhood must be in a "your own route" place; we seem to have the same mail carriers for years on end.

Sort of sounds like when my spouse was working in a grocery store; they would work him full time for eight weeks or so then cut his hours in half, because the union rules said if you worked full time a certain number of weeks, they had to give full time regular hours (and accompanying raises etc.) after that. It's like they're hoping you'll quit so they can hire someone cheaper. Unfortunately, even my agency does it somewhat with scientific aides - they can work full time for nine months, but then they have to take three months off (or space out the limited number of work hours over the year) to avoid paying them benefits. Many of them go off to grad school and such, so they look at it as temporary anyway. We've been trying for years to change those positions to a permanent classification, so we're not constantly having retrain people every 9 months, but HR doesn't see it that way.

[aprilstarchild.livejournal.com]

When I worked retail, you had to have 80 hours a month for four months to qualify for health care. Dip under 80 hours in a month, lose you health care.

It was retail. I worked almost full-time from June (we had a garden center) to the end of December. And then I was cut back to twelve hours a week for a few months.

I only had health care for about half of any given year.