Working It: Recent Temping Tales

I work as a temp, and I probably will for 3 or 4 more months. Sure, I could have hoped for more in terms of my post-Peace Corps job - and I had fun going to interviews, even received a few offers - but life gets in the way. We will be going to Grad School out of state, so getting a long-term job here in Maryland isn't in the cards for me right now. I like my temp agency - good location, wonderful ladies, even when some of the clients I work for aren't guaranteed to be the best. I like the on/off schedule because it gives me frequent breaks. Just how I used to study in college! And it's exactly what I need right now. In Malawi, it was culturally uncomely to work like a slave, so I got used to a relaxed, social, friendly work atmosphere. Here, it's almost a polar opposite. People are social to a point, but the main goal is to Be Productive. For Eight Hours Straight. That's hard to maintain! So, breaks are great. The main downside of temping is that health insurance is up to me, and even finding the time to go see the doctor (all 5 types of specialists that were recommended by my physician - ugh!) is difficult to arrange.

What have I done so far as a temp?

- Receptionist at The Textile Museum - 1 day. Beautiful little museum a short walk from Dupont Circle. Answering the phone and greeting visitors was a relatively straight-forward job. I got tripped up when the exterminator came by - I definitely didn't have the authority or desire to consent to spraying chemicals everywhere.

- Receptionist at an International Aid Org - 1 day. It was isolated up in that office - few outside visitors came in. Mostly answering the phone and forwarding calls, plus unlocking the door, over and over. Lots of cool international staff. But at least I got to chill on the internet and read the news. Easy, nice folks.

- Events Help with an International Relations / Political Interest Group - 2 weeks and 2 days. Great people - I loved how they kept calling me to come back, until the night of the event. I called tons of congresspeople / senators' offices schedulers trying to shore up attendance for the event, subbed in as the receptionist, did some data entry, etc. It didn't even matter that the interest group was Republican-leaning!

- Data Entry at a Food Bank - 3 days. I learned a lot about data entry, but I also learned that I am not a happy worker with a supervisor looking over my shoulder and stressing about time. Apparently I was so efficient that I did a 5-day job in 3 days: I got a call after my 3rd day to let me know I was no longer needed. It wasn't a great feeling. But I guess some people haven't had a lot of experience hosting temps - note to self, for future endeavors requiring extra helping hands: do not abuse power over someone else's hourly wage!

- Accounts at a Large Newspaper - 3 days + ? This is my current job. I'm sorting through invoice papers to find specific rogue retailers who don't keep good records of how much they owe the paper company. It's fun because I get to listen to podcasts while working, they fed me cake, and I have another intern around to chat with. There is also potential for extending!

Awesome/Awful Happenings

I love lists. So why not make a list of the awesome and awful things going on right now?

AWESOME
1. Moving into our new apartment! It's right next to my Mom's old high school, and a liquor store called 'The Golden Bull' which has a huge gold bull on the roof. Got some good wine there - Ravens Petite Syrah. Then drank it for dinner &breakfast (with the addition of juice and apple chunks).














2. Signing up for Salsa at Stamp. We're going to learn to dance! Just in time for Valentine's Day. Credit goes to Devin on this one. Hubba hubba

3. Worms eat our trash! Vermiculture is the urban homesteader's answer to the stinky trash can. We got our worms within a few days and now they are happily chewing up our slimy collards, lemon rind, breadcrumbs, etc.

4. Free / Cheap furniture! Tammy had a kitchen table for us, Value Village had four chairs for us for $32 -- not too bad, but we're refinishing them so they look super spiffy, and Ellicott City neighbors (who used to babysit me when I was a wee lass) may have a couch/loveseat for us. All we have to figure out is how to move these freebies.

5. Watching our first State of the Union Address in 3 years at Busboys & Poets. I. Love. That. Place. Good pecan pie, too. What I'm most excited about is his bold statement about ending subsidies for dinosaur oil companies. Urging investment in education and technology sounds right on to me, too.

6. Hyattsville Library. Finally got a copy of Cormac McCarthy's The Road; Fun DVDs like Robin Hood Men In Tights and permaculture book 'Food Not Lawns!' I love walking away with an armful of treasures. Free!










7. Swap Meet and International Food Stores. There is so much good produce in this ethnically diverse part of town! In the past week we made Miso soup w/rice noodles, Goat stew w/ginger mashed potatoes, Spaghetti with Squash, and smoked a lot of hookah.

8. Tagging along on Environmental Science and Tech trips! I got to go w/Devin to hear an engineer from Oklahoma State talk about Precision Agriculture (fertilizer delivery using real-time sensing of how much nitrogen the crops need). That was also my first time on the 4H grounds - good stuff. Devin was digging the shooting range next door to the lecture hall.

9. Neighbor's Internet + How I Met Your Mother Episodes = Giggle Time

AWFUL
1. Paying my credit card bill. Not only did the apartment complex take a month's rent out of my savings account, now I have to pay $500 to Capital One out of my checking account, or suffer inexplicable interest charges. How did I manage to spend that much.. AND split everything with Devin at the same time? We are clearly living a life beyond our means. Meaning I don't have a paycheck, why should I eat? Back to lentils and rice, kids.

2. Job searching. My noncompetitive eligibility doesn't seem to be doing shit for me. I'm just hopeful that an RPCV friend's referral will be enough to get me a gig out in Gaithersburg doing lab auditing with the National Institute of Science and Technology. Then again, what about that Youth Leadership Conference I interviewed for? Guess I could go back to the Insurance company that tried to recruit me.. or check myself into a temp agency. Total case of the anxious blahs. See #Awful 1 about anxiety.

3. My family thinking that I am not job searching just because I have had a 8% interview rate. I'm trying I swear! But these times are so different than previous times, it's just hard to relate to people's expectations.

4. Ice on Metzerott Road. Why did we choose to live on the hilliest road in 4 zip codes? How do we get home from Value Village with a trunk full of STUFF when it starts snizzling at 3:30 but threatens to freeze after 6? Who will salt the roads? Who will plow? How do I know I won't slide into the ditch? I'll just let Devin drive.. remembering that he comes from the land of eternal sunshine! His experience with dirt roads might translate alright, but that doesn't prevent me from giving myself little panic attacks.

Job Satisfaction and Other Myths

This has been one busy month spent working hard and playing hard. I got all choked up today telling the bosslady how much I like my (primary) job, so I thought I would share a bit about that.

Working at an environmental justice group is a feel-good job. There are people depending on my organization who have a real chance at doing something really important for their communities and who are willing to walk 240 miles on foot to succeed (and much more). I like the people aspect of this NGO because it gives a new dimension to the environmental part of the work; the toxin concentrations in the air, the cancer and disease epidemics, the leaching landfills all have a real face. The human dimension is much more compelling than the abstract idea of a couple bird species getting wiped out. I can imagine packed town meetings in my head, I can feel the fear and grief of parents whose children have developed serious and rare illnesses overnight, and I can hear people pleading with governors who just can't provide a good answer to why it's too expensive to act on behalf of the health of the citizens. People power is hopeful and uplifting - even when an effort doesn't succeed. To simply know someone else is there is to be strengthened.

I'm also becoming quickly biased against jobs in the private and government sector, since part of what I'm paid to do is to examine their gross and often appalling failings. I don't want to be paid with dirty money, nomatter how badly chemical companies might need someone to be the seed of change from within the organization. Why should my college education be a sentence to a life of guilt?

Despite all the positive points, it has been hard to cope with intern and cashier wages, especially with the Christmas social blitz (fun!). Recent calculations yielded 40 hours time work+travel for my internship plus 14 hours for my cashier job at Roots - that's turning out to be a lot of work. More than I thought 2 jobs would be. It's frustrating to not have time to write even though the urge is usually there once every week or two. Forgive me for being so lax recently - let's hope this is just an adjustment period.

My First Week: A Non-Profit Primer

Here are a few amusing things learned my first week on the job at CHEJ:

• Celebrity is an important thing in the world of non-profits. It behooves an organization to be founded by or peopled by celebrities - everyone wants to be near to them in case some star power rubs off. But also important are celebrity donors, who flock to fancy donor events in big cities to show their support for the cause. Who would have thought my first staff meeting would include a discussion of who's networked with the likes of Brooke Shields, Ralph Nader, and even Hillary?

• Everyone does everything. I'm not just an intern, you know; I'm going to play toxicologist and organizer, too. This will probably be mostly good; first, I won't get bored from being boxed in too tightly, and second, I'll have a more well-rounded set of skills when I leave.

• Staff all seem to know someone who served in or who is currently serving in the peace corps. That means lots of good stories and advice for me! Best so far is my co-worker who built her own greenhouse and quit her PC job-function as an environmental educator to better serve the needs of the community. As she put it, "It's not like they would actually fire you."

• Environmental organizations take running a green office seriously. This means printing and copying with soy-based ink on recycled/reused paper, 100% donated and reused office furniture, a moratorium on paper, plastic, and styrofoam kitchen supplies, and a strictly enforced recycling policy. Needless to say, I'm pleased.

• Public transportation is marvelous. I can knit, I can read all manner of publications, I can mouth the words to old Juanes and Tears for Fears songs, and I can people-watch. It's a relaxing way to wake up or wind down, and not having to worry about terrible snow traffic is amazing. But, you say, this is not limited to non-profit orgs-- and this is true! But it's a first for me, so I say it counts.
  

Some semblance of a plan

This update from the employment front:

I've been nominated to serve as a science teacher in the Peace Corps on an assignment departing in June (the earliest I could get)! My country hasn't been identified yet, but my recruiter has identified and placed me in a very large region of a developing continent in need of a volunteer. I contacted a former volunteer through a friend at CMU to learn more about her experience. Basically, she had an awesome time, falling in love with her [now] husband through letters during her service, felt she was an important and appreciated part of a community where she is still remembered, and she got in some all expenses-paid travel. By way of insuring that I'm pumped for my service opportunity, she pointed out some benefits of being a PC teacher that I hadn't thought of before:

• Teachers are very well-appreciated and given respect, as they are much less abundant; you know your work will have a positive community impact.
• Teaching is a well-defined set of skills that makes it easier to get a handle on what your job function is. Job satisfaction tends to be higher than other volunteers.
• You get the summer off, so you can travel far and wide, work on secondary projects of interest, or both!
• Your students will remember what you taught them long after you leave; sustainable learning and practices due to your efforts is virtually guaranteed!
  

Next steps:
Completing some very detailed health paperwork to get comprehensive clearance, and receiving my official invitation (equivalent to a job offer) to serve. Also, I'm going to look into attending some events with my parents to get them more comfortable with the idea of 27 months abroad, as well as getting them in contact with other parents of past/present PC volunteers.

In the meantime, for the next 7 months or so I'll be working as an intern on the BE SAFE campaign at the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice in the DC metro area. I'm jumping at the chance to work at a Non-Governmental Org and to concentrate on something close to my heart: hazardous waste! The basic goal is to protect health via pollution prevention (P2) policy and publication work. I'll probably get some experience in relevant environmental policy (RCRA/TOSCA/etc) and have fun researching and learning all kinds of details about waste facilities and how we unwittingly (uncaringly?) harm ourselves when we 'just throw it away'.

Take home message: There IS no "away," folks. Except for when I get on a plane in June for 27 months service off the continent of N. America - that reasonably qualifies as 'far away.' But by no means will I discourage anyone from visiting.

A Progressive Extravaganza

The following is a non-exhaustive list of progressive organizations and entities (loosely categorized) I was, am, or could be interested in. I post it for two reasons:
a. I'm constantly misplacing the bits of paper I record them on, when they are recorded at all, and
b. because other people might be interested in them, too!
It also doesn't suit me to make my Launch Pad on the left much longer than it is now. I'll probably update this every so often.

In no particular order, other than the order they came to me:

Topics:
NY Times letters from Amory Lovins
Failure of the Appropriate Technology Movement [requires jstor access]
dcjobs.com, indeed.com, idealist.org, marylandjobnetwork.com, US Gov't Jobs

Movies/Documentaries:
Who Killed the Electric Car?,
The End of Suburbia
An Inconvenient Truth
Affluenza: The Epidemic of Overconsumption [recently added!]

Books:
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Affluenza
Not Buying It [recently added]

Organizations and Projects:
Maryland Conservation Corps [recently added]
The Post-Carbon Institute [recently added]
The Rocky Mountain Institute: Abundance by Design
The Society of Ecological Restoration
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology
Redefining Progress
Design that Matters
International Development Enterprises
Engineers without Borders
Design Corps
KickStart: The Tools to End Poverty
Solar Electric Light Fund
Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore
Woods End Research Lab
The US Composting Council
Biodegradable Products Institute
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Design for the Other 90% Resources Page
Green Living, Natural Foods Links at Roots [recently added]

And here's a quote or two, just for fun:

"The new problems are not the consequences of incidental failure but of technological success."
Small is Beautiful
E.F. Schumacher


"In 1967, two-thirds of American college students said 'developing a meaningful philosophy of life' was 'very important' to them, while fewer than one-third said the same thing about 'making a lot of money.' By 1997, those figures were reversed."
Affluenza by De Graaf, Wann, and Naylor
and The Post-Corporate World, David Korten

Done with School, Snapshot of China

Every time I think of it, I can't help but marvel at how it is to be finished with the school system after 19 years of going to class, long hours with textbooks, taking notes, dealing with new teachers, and meeting classmates for work and play. After being in such a stiff and well-defined system, I feel a bit floaty out here in this world where there are a huge variety of possible choices one could make. It's great to be free enough to reconnect with friends in the area, though - and soon, I'll be across the country to see the California side of the family for a kiddie birthday party!

After such a preamble, I'm posting an excerpt from one of my PC essays, for entertainment and for show. This is one ingredient in one such possibility for the future. I write about my two weeks in China, which I visited five years ago.

"I learned to bring toilet paper with me, to tolerate trash on the streets and to remain (relatively) calm on chaotic highways teeming with bikes and rickshaws operating independent of any apparent traffic laws. It wasn’t a freewheeling kind of integration that my friend and I eased ourselves into, but more of a cautious one; awareness for my own safety seemed suddenly closely linked to my decisions. At the same time, I felt sympathetic toward the people who lived there—the old huotong neighborhoods seemed a tragic place to live if lung-crippling coal was the most widely-used fuel for cooking and heating available, and the ugly practice of land-reclamation continued to leave its mark on the local mountains, all in the name of low-cost capital development. The smog coloring the sunset gray was the suspect in the case of my own respiratory ailment that developed after only 4 or 5 days. Water was also a huge problem, as every bottle-toting tourist knows, but 300 million residents will never be truly adapted to a water table contaminated by human waste. Chinese behaviors were discouraging, but what I took away was this: there probably weren’t better options readily available, and my ability to recognize such inequities could be a means to help. In China, health risks and environmental deterioration have a real, tangible meaning in a way that’s more often talked about than experienced in the US."

Stuff, things, food on the table.

I'm back from Europe! There is so much to share about the experience. What a wonderful gift to receive. Now, to finish the blog (which is only currently halfway there!)...

Living at home again has been a rough adjustment. I'm just amazed at how much time two people can spend looking after their stuff - things that become their entire lives, instead of things that compliment and facilitate lives. There is a lot more to my parents than stuff, but maybe the transition from being a backpacker running on 4 sets of clothing for a month to stumbling through a house full of possessions and noise pollution has been harder than I anticipated.

Nonetheless.. one material possession I can appreciate is trip pictures! I just started printing some today, and even got high compliments from my Dad, buyer of many an expensive camera accessory. Now that I'm relatively adroit at keeping up with them, photos and journaling a great way to hang onto and share memories. I'm so thankful that I had a friend to borrow a camera from - Emily did me an amazing favor! It must have taken a huge amount of trust to let it go for an entire 6 weeks.

Now that I'm back, it's officially time to work on doing something productive to move toward winning my very own multigrain loaf. To that end, I just dug out an article I photocopied from the New Yorker about an innovative, green designer named Amory Lovins. He envisioned a different energy future in 1976 (Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken? pdf) and is the CEO of a company I would be excited to work for (!). I'm also interested in internships at Friends of the Earth, who are centered in DC. Lovins worked there before founding his own company; I'm sure reading more will lead me to other interesting opportunities. Excitement!

Edit-
3 websites for green jobs were recently e-mailed to me by a friend:
1. Young Professionals in Energy
2. Greenjobs
3. Renewable Energy Access

Save some energy, while you're at it!

It's no secret that I took Captain Planet to heart when I learned about the three R's: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse. To focus on a current buzzword, energy, saving money and reducing emissions is all about that middle one - cut down on your use! There are so many easy ways to do this. A few of the best I'm personally invested in are...

- Energy Efficient Computing!
This one is especially important. I wish more companies would get on the bandwagon with this; think of all the money wasted and gases created by leaving computer-centered offices on all night (not to mention clusters in Universities.. cough CMU cough). However, just as a public service announcement:

do *NOT* leave your laptop plugged in and charging overnight.

Also easy to do but worth noting is turning off and unplugging lights and appliances when you're done using them. I can't describe how many times a day I walk around and turn off things people have forgotten about. Also crucial are unplugging adapters that draw power when appliances are turned off. The point: the era of electronic thoughtlessness is coming to a close.

- Hybrid cars (much borrowed from hybridreview)
Some calculations indicate that, along with the well-known superiority in terms of miles per gallon of gas, costs for operating hybrid cars are now competitive with those of traditional cars, with only 3-7 years ownership (that's nothing -- I drove a 1992 car until recently). This means savings for the environment and for your wallet. That's a powerful combination!

Tax incentives currently abound for buying hybrid cars - one bill Bush managed to do right. Though some are diminishing as years go by due to sales, many still apply. See if the car you're thinking about using qualifies, then go for it! Sooner might be better.

- Alternative Energy and Fuel Technology
This one's a biggie; I'm considering of applying for jobs in this area. My biggest concern is the emissions of the new fuels; I have yet to hear of a new fuel that lives up to be a) non-oil derived and b) doesn't deplete our crops and c) emits less CO2 per mile driven.
I love the idea of using ethanol fuel, especially using cellulose as a source and genetically-engineered E. Coli to get the job done; it's cool, it's high-tech, and the government has already looked into it - but the infrastructure isn't there, not to mention what the actual environmental impact would be.. I have no idea. I will definitely be alert to news in this area.