Lunch: Beefsteak, watermelon
Dinner: Nothing, just not hungry yet. Need to add that I just had a cup of tomato soup, one of those little applesauce things, some probiotic chocolate and another cranberry snack pack thingy. The chocolate is just plain weird.
Snack: Cottage cheese
Lunch was more steak, with half left for lunch at work tomorrow. I had bought bagged salad, but the produce bin must be all wonky, because it froze the stuff. Very disappointing, as I really wanted to take a big salad tomorrow. Rats. I really should eat something soon, or else I will wake up and have to make something, not a fun thing to do. I do not know how it happened, but we seem to be out of canned soup, which is what I wanted tonight. And, some more of those rice/seeds crackers.
Tomorrow is my long day at work and I was finishing up some resource stuff and it got me to thinking about what I do and how I do it. Truth is that I am really good at this work. I have said this before, but everything that I have experienced in my life has brought me to do this work. I am a tiny fish in a big pond, living in a village, but with two large cities on either side of me. I work in the smaller of those. Whilst I am valued at work, I am relatively unknown as the person who provides these services.
That said, our local workforce center, the literacy council and one of the nearby prisons refer people to me as someone who can help them craft the documents they need, especially when there is scant previous work experience. They often send people with special needs and challenges, people that they simply do not have the staff or resources to help. I have to say that that aspect of what I do, the trust that those organizations have in me is sometimes a bit overwhelming. I am so aware of the great responsibility that I have to everyone who comes to me, high school students preparing for their first jobs and right on up to upper management people who need only a bit of fine-tuning on their résumés. Oh, I should mention that I help people craft résumés, CVs and other job seeking documents, as well as honing their interviewing skills.
I help them find local resources, including social services, educational opportunities, literacy help and lots more. I teach basic computer skills and how to navigate the Internet and use that to search for jobs and other information. O have helped clients with tax and governmental, legal and other issues. Clients have needed help creating their own businesses and marketing the products of their hobbies. I am currently working with a client on patents. Anything that has to do with creating and supporting income, well, that is what I do. It is all about investing in the future and supporting people in finding and manifesting the work they are called to do.
It can be difficult for people to do the deeper work involved, but only because no one has ever suggested that they should. I and the work have made several people sweat, a few literally. One woman is a semi-regular, as she struggles with a particular aspect, and she cries sometimes, but I suspect that she is a tender person who is inclined to shed more than the occasional tear.
There are days when I do more counseling than anything else, and although that is a natural extension of the main body of work, it is an area in which I wish I had more experience and training. I am looking into the possibility of returning to school in the next semester, or the one following. It is a huge commitment and I am not sure that I am up to meeting it. Anyway, I do not have to decide until the last minute, as the classes with which I need to begin are never full.
So, anyway, I was thinking about what a job is, what it means to have a job and all that jazz. For me it is the work I have done and what I am doing now. It is about how I work a few days each week to improve my skills and move closer to being the really good resource that I want to be for my clients. It is also about managing on the money I have, because I do this work, and a couple other jobs as a volunteer. That is wonderful and all, but it means that I spend most of my time working for no wage. No money.
I am, at least for now, content to do it this way. If I decide to go back to school, things may have to change, and that is a huge part of the decisions I have to make. This is truly huge, big picture stuff, even though we never use "big picture" anymore. smiley: smile
I have to figure out how the quality of what I do will be improved by taking those classes and how the quality of my life will change if I make this commitment, particularly where my family is concerned.
I was reading something this afternoon about the experiences of store staff who sell lottery tickets. It was pretty compelling stuff, and whilst I am too conservative to participate in the state lottery, it is nice to entertain dreams about winning a whole shitload of money and making my life easier and making some other dreams come true. But, I will never have that experience because I will never play the lottery. However, if the Universe would like to drop that same pile of money on me, I promise to be an excellent steward of said fortune and would make it count, not just for myself and my current, personal, problematic issues, but for the world around me, most especially my community.
I have so many thoughts about what a job means and could mean to my clients, but that will have to wait for another time, because I absolutely have to go and search for some soup or something.
I made some new guilty pleasures today, but I cannot remember what any of them are. Oh, a surprise.
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