Job Replacements

As I slowly approach employment—two possibilities fell through yesterday though two more came up at the end of the day—I have been debating as to whether or not to ever here specifically mention what it is that I will be doing to pay my bills once I find a job.

On the one hand, as most of us have somewhere inherited the belief that anyone who is underemployed should immediately feel ashamed of their job, I would either feel the need to specifically mention my job to dispel such an unnecessary absurd notion or for no other reason than to prove that I have nothing to shamefully or regretfully hide. Yet, on the other hand is the great fallacy whereby we define ourselves by jobs and thus to never mention it directly would be a direct assault upon this, yet another, absurd notion.

It is not in knowing full well I will more than likely either find a $7/hour job at a store or restaurant or an office job that might pay slightly more that I do not feel compelled in any way to specifically mention my future job. For even if I were to find a job as a Scientist or [insert some other widely respected profession here] I would not specifically mention it for, as I have said here before, I see no difference between one job and another: they are all annoying, yet still necessary, interruptions. Besides the only two truly necessary occupations in the world (Bartenders and Doctors, though, besides the vast difference in required education, there is little difference between the two) everything else, Lawyers and Politicians more than all else combined, are simply unnecessary roles we have agreed to become; to play for pay upon this stage. To even recognize my job in my attempt to work as little as possible is a contradiction I am not willing to take up here, doubters that I am ashamed of something be damned.

Still, if one is still stubbornly holding onto the idea that our job is a defining quality to what we are, one needs look no further than all the factories, mills and vacant shops now closed in Buffalo, NY. (Perhaps it the abundance of such reminders of the temporal aspects of jobs that Buffalo has that brought me so willingly back?) The moment those jobs no longer produced profit was the moment those jobs were no longer in existence and the men and women who had put in more than half of their lives into that factory or the shopkeeper who lost his savings were suddenly turned away and the very thing that they allowed themselves to be defined by was suddenly taken from and deprived of them. Again, nothing personal, it was just business.

I often think just how replaceable we each are to our jobs, just as the factory workers of previous generations were to their jobs, and worry just how soon the office and service jobs that people are defining themselves by in our current job market might be gone as well. Because it still is, after all, nothing personal, just business. Those rules will never change.

So while I continue to look for a job I keep these things in mind while remembering to never allow a job to be any more irreplaceable than I am to that job.

Job Hunt Begins

For the obvious affordability of being able to go out and still get drunk, on Wednesday nights such as these, at least when having some money to spend, I usually go down to Chippewa St. to La Luna for their $5 cover charge to drink at their open bar from 11-1am. Since the bartenders are amongst the best I’ve encountered, and on this night swamped with work, I usually walk out having spent around $10 total after tips. Win, win? As far as I can see it (which isn’t always so far by 1:00).

However, I’ve come to the point now, financially, that I pretty much cannot afford to go out, even for practically free booze, and find myself home instead tonight. When faced with the predicament of not working but not being able to go out, or working but being able to go out, I’m sure a man testing a theory of not working would stand by his guns and be resigned to not go out.

But let the record show—and I can’t stress this enough—I am no man. (And if all goes accordingly to plan I never will be.) Obviously I would prefer to be able to drink and not work but sometime ago, not knowing precisely how long, it was decided—collectively?—that we should not enjoy ourselves all that much and should instead spend our precious time working. For what I don’t know, but it is inarguable. So instead, I’m now left living with the compromise that I would rather work and drink than not drink at all.

(I could still be drinking but it is my desire for both beer and home that separates me from being a bum—and that may be all, which I am fine with.)

And so, foreseeing this forthcoming event, I began the all too depressing idea of searching for a job today. I did it quickly on my first day, like ripping off a band-aid, and hope something will come of it soon and simply end the search as quickly as possible. At this point, I see no difference between one job or the other no matter what the pay or what the job—they are all simply jobs. I will almost guarantee that I will take the first possible job that comes my way (though, it will be interesting to see just how much stubborn pride I harbor that might effect just how much I truly believe that).

To forget that I was even out looking for a job today though, I immediately took up my housemate Daren’s offer to go on a bike ride right after I got home. He too just moved back to Buffalo after a three year hiatus under the same circumstances as me: he just wanted to come back because he missed the feeling of it, saved some money to do so, and will also possibly be looking for a job soon enough (though another friend, Todd, might have lined him up for one already—one I was more than willing to concede to Daren for the simple reason that it was full-time).

Armed with similar enthusiasm to see the city again anew, we road down to the water with no particular end in mind and cameras in hand. For a city that rightfully dreams constantly of a more developed waterfront, I have been surprised to find just what there already is in the way of access to the Niagara River and Lake Erie. In the last two weeks alone I’ve found bike paths going onto Squaw Island at two different locations, and the bike path that goes under the Peace Bridge, down along the lakefront through LaSalle Park, all the way to HSBC Arena.

There are always things to do and places to do them. It’s only a mindset. Just as much as people are willing to believe that the only way to move back to Buffalo is by having a good job lined up, if people are willing to believe that there is nothing to entertain them at all on the waterfront, they will not even bother to test otherwise and accept this as a truth. But it doesn’t always take a proverbial Columbus to prove the world isn’t flat. For the exceptions who have personally gone down to the Squaw Island and LaSalle Park bike paths they have found one of the many pointlessly unknown reserves of the city that I can now proudly say I know of too.

Along these paths we stopped several times to take pictures. Both Seinfeld fans, Daren and I, we also realized that we now have an area where we can go down and contemplate a possible engagement and even began thinking of how we could recreate those moments from the show, even using the seagulls down by the water.

From the viewpoint in LaSalle Park we got a good look at the new windmills—how dare they build those on land that has historically been vacant and useless: it’s historical land!—that were recently put up and decided to try to bike our way down there. But, not knowing that the Sky Way—we can’t knock that down, it’s a historical eyesore; a part of our history!—is the only way over both the Buffalo River and the City Ship Canal, thus cutting us off from the shoreline temporarily, we rode around a little, got to take in the work along the excavated parts of the Erie Canal—how dare they excavate historically unexcavated lands!—and then decided upon just riding back up through downtown.

We probably spent another half an hour riding around downtown taking a few more pictures including a really cool alley view of the back of a building and its old fire escapes near Washington and Lafayette Square that Daren found while [ticketable action deleted] at Thursday in the Square last week.

All told we road around about two hours. We were able to take in and appreciate a number of places and views that we hadn’t bothered to find before and swore we would upon our return. And, perhaps more importantly, I realized that, as we sat on our front porch to cool off on a much more endurable summer evening, I even forgot about the impending doom of the job hunt.

The medicinal powers of a body in motion.

As for next time, we plan on riding all the way out to see the new windmills up close.