Issues aside, I'm impressed your mother knows how to text.

I've been the mom in that scenario...I did give my daughter a week to decompress from Korea first. ;-)

Meanwhile, my stress is that a week from tomorrow we leave for Colorado for son's graduation in Colorado Springs...meanwhile my mom-in-law's husband (the one with the brain tumor)just had a stroke yesterday...they are in Denver. We are staying in the Springs but I am sure my husband will need to spend at least some time in Denver. I do NOT do NOT do NOT want to stay at her house AT ALL.

IWILLNOTSTRESSIWILLNOTSTRESSIWILLNOTSTRESS...

She also has a facebook and an AIM screen name and so on.
She was on the internet before I was, so I guess she just made it on this side of the technological divide.
Which, y'know, is kinda awful when it comes to passive aggressive messages and what not (not that this is an example of that).

(I read this as open to anyone who's stressed. . .hope this is not a derail)

*breathing*

When kid was born, my wife was one of those "mothering magazine" moms who thinks that all vaccinations are a plot to give kids what they are supposed to be protecting them from, or at least to make money for the drug companies.

Well, those chickens are coming home to roost in that daughter needs a series of hep-b vaccinations for getting into college, and the last can't happen until late August and we're supposed to register her in June, and we can't get consistent information about whether she'll even be ALLOWED to register without 3 shots. One person said yes, one said no.

So this just completely sucks and, while I argued for vaccinations when daughter was young (if you don't get vaccinated, you are depending on other taking the minimal risk FOR you), I lost, and now I am pissed but I am also telling my wife that she needs to handle this, which feels to her like I am blaming her and maybe I am.

But it's very stressful, dealing with a college in another state and not being able to get good answers and most of the time, anyway, being on hold forever and then not getting through.

Oh yes, this is very much open to anyone who needs to vent.

Oooh I need a place to vent!

What the FUCK, mosquitos? Why have I always been your go-to snack?

I woke up this morning at around 5.30, from scratching myself. Paused, noticed that there were several hotspots on my legs. Great, a mosquito. Covered myself head to toe in sheet (way too hot for this) and every damned time I *nearly* got back to sleep, the fucking insect buzzed in my ear. In the end gave up and got up, so I am tired, cranky and covered in around 25 bites from head to toe.

Meanwhile, mr. gaspode was oblivious, sleeping beside me, with nothing covering him, and had no bites at all.

I did manage to find and squash the skeeter after mr. g got up, though.

(I just got a return call from the one I made two days ago. Everything is fine. . .no problem with registering in June)

((Citrusfreak))

damn, dude. Well you could do like I did in a similar situation back when I was your age, say "screw you, mom!" and move into a warehouse with 30 other sk8board punks and one shower. I don't recommend this, btw.

Retail really, really sucks, and it is a soul-killing experience. I know, I've walked out of more than my share of shitty retail / foodservice jobs. Are there any other internship / temp alternatives in forestry / journalism immediately feasible (like Miko et. al. recommended in your prior jobs thread)?

Any shot at doing hotel banquets / catering service? Banquets is actually fairly lucrative and not as big a pisser as being a waitron. I know, this option doesn't suck much less than retail but... here's the thing: The money's okay, if you can handle the bullshit. Speaking of hotel service, you might also look into getting a busboy or doorman position somewhere. I actually made a decent amount of bank as a busser in a spendy-ish restaurant (they also tip out the busboys at the end of the night yanno) before I was legal drinking age, and bussers don't have to handle near the amount of shit that waitrons do. Now, it is a demeaning, craptastic job, no lie, and you get shat on a fair amount.

HOWEVER, I absolutely credit working (sometimes fulltime, sometimes part time) as a bustron, then a waitron / banquet server for six or seven years for giving me what few people, coping and problemsolving skills I do have.

Not to be all "uphill in the snow both ways" about it, but I honestly believe that people who've (successfully) held low-rent service industry jobs like this tend to become more reliable management types in their later careers.

You should also register at a temp agency like Kelly or OfficeTeam. Seriously, all you need are rudimentary arithmetic and typing skills. They are always looking for people who will just reliably show up on time and can handle simple things a trained monkey could accomplish, and once you take the typing / office software tests (they're insanely easy), you can often walk out with a temp contract that starts like, within 24-48 hours. Bonus tip: Dude receptionists, particularly cute young dude receptionists, tend to get mucho adoration and tons of slack from us old office ladies, btw.

... er I just realised that the bonus tip could be viewed as either an asset or a liability, depending on the creepiness factor. Your call, carry on.

I cranked out over in the shouting thread, but I'm stressed slightly about this vacation. Not the actual vacationing part, because I know that is going to be awesome (4 days with my best friend in NY, 3 days by myself on a beach) but the repercussions that involve me leaving my mother to her own devices for that long.
I live at home and she seems to feel the need to be in my business. Every day, when I leave for work, at the same time, Monday through Thursday, she asks me where I'm going. As if it's not completely obvious. If I'm not home 30 minutes after I'm supposed to be, she calls my cell phone, FREAKING OUT BECAUSE OMG I MIGHT BE DEAD IN A DITCH and not doing something like oh, getting gas in my car and Rita's and visiting with friends who work there.
I know that she's going to be freaking out during this whole trip away from home, and it's driving me nuts. She keeps telling me that I'm going to get raped and have my car stolen (among other things, but those two are the biggies that she keeps harping on).

She needs to get a hobby or something because she is driving me out of my fucking mind. (She retired in March and ever since, she's been cleaning the house, and putting all these old pictures of my brother and I into frames and our house is COVERED with them now. She's also been oiling all the wood in the house, including some things that don't need it, which is nasty and means that we can't actually touch anything. Oh, god forbid if you put a dish into the DISHWASHER BECAUSE OMG I WAS CLEANING IT. IT'S A FUCKING DISHWASHER. IT CLEANS ITSELF WOMAN.)

And my father is no help. He just antagonizes her. Which is what he does, to everyone. I'm not sure how much of it is actually malicious versus just him putting his foot in his mouth because he thinks something is funny.

And my brother isn't either. But he doesn't live here anymore, and I think that's part of her paranoia/empty nest OMGness. (He moved out for good the same day I left to go to college. It wasn't pretty.)

ooh, great answer from lonefrontranger.

I have to admit that I'm old enough to be citrusfreak's mom (and, no problems texting here... if you don't count being relatively s l o w ), and this may seem like an old-person response, but I do sort of roll my eyes at all the young kids (I'm not talking about you citrusfreak, really) who just sort of expect to drop right into an interesting, creative, well-paid job. Blah, blah, walking uphill in the snow, both ways, as lonefrontranger says... but I was a babysitter from age 12, made and sold jewelry and custom embroidery (jeans and jean jackets) at school, worked in a burger place at 16, a more upscale burger place at 17, worked at a country club at 18, then an (illegal, underage) bartender in the front (fancy) bar at the same place at 19, secretary at a real estate agency at 20, real estate agent at 21, moved across the country and was a secretary at a graphics studio at 22, then a production assistant (still 22), then became a typographer at an alternative weekly, 23, production manager there, 24, ... creative director, staff writer, managing editor, director of publications.

I've condensed a lot at the end and smushed together a couple more jobs, but the thing is that I would never have been able to start at the alternative weekly as a managing editor... or even staff writer. I was right there because I took any opening once it opened. And I was already doing the work before I got the job titles. I know things don't always work that way, but if you are talented and spunky and make yourself ridiculously useful and irreplaceable (as well as being likeable enough, let's face it - and demanding your due, when it comes to that, and it always comes to that), then you do get right ahead. Sometimes even more ahead than you really want to get, to be honest.

So... I'm not saying that this thing with your mom isn't fucked up, but I am saying that you might do some jobs that are under your skill level, though not under your experience/age level, and actually come out on the other end (eventually) better for it. I would never want to give up my experiences in fast food and slower food (drinks, really), and secretarial, because the stuff I learned with that was important for my life. Not for my career, but for my development. And, honestly, for my humanity. I also don't think I would have been the great manager that I was (and I really was great) if I hadn't had so many different sort of experiences.

YMMV, of course, and you can be pissed off at your mom... but don't undervalue the LOLs and reminiscences that you can have later about your time as a retail/fast food/etc. monkey. It's almost an American rite of passage... and honestly, I feel sorry, a lot, for the Greek kids who are pretty much pampered by their parents 'til they're 40 (and beyond, really), and wouldn't be caught dead working any of those early jobs I mentioned (and their parents wouldn't be caught dead making/allowing their kids /to work). They have unrealistic expectations, and mostly all feel bitter, shortchanged and hopeless, career-wise, and I think it's because they are bereft of that bootstrap experience of starting low, dazzling your employers, and getting yourself on up there.

So. Condensed. Uurgh. But you get what I'm saying.

I feel sorry, a lot, for the Greek kids who are pretty much pampered by their parents 'til they're 40 (and beyond, really)

I finally understand why all the Greek cafes in the neighborhood are full on weekday afternoons.

I can't revise my resume anymore. I can't. I'm on version 329 (it feels like). I'm endlessly revising and nitpicking, and there seems to be no end in sight. And I know I promised a fresh version to the recruiter today, but gah, I'm just going to have to send it out.

*weeps quietly, in a stressed out irritated way*

TPS, that's pretty much exactly it. I don't want to put down the Greeks (really, really don't, I love 'em Greeks).. but this is a true thing. It's too complicated to explain here (I just tried, and it was coming out to be a thesis), but by trying to provide too much for their kids, Greek parents tend to deprive them of some important experiences.

As the mother of a 16 year old son who is about to receive a text message not dissimilar to yours, dear citrusfreak, I wholeheartedly endorse what taz & lonefrontranger are saying. That and this: when I hire people, which I often do for this museum as well as the others where I have worked, I look for restaurant experience. Anyone with restaurant experience gets an automatic up in the pile because I know, from myself and my friends and my kids, that working in a restaurant teaches you to a) multitask like a motherfucker, b) prioritize like nobody's business and c) not sweat the small stuff, which is to say, not freak out when things get insane. I need people who can already handle all that, not people who are just learning those things.

However, I would like to bitch now about the fact that I have to design a billboard this afternoon and the billboard company has not deigned to give me the dimensions which are just oh ever so slightly important and also that I have never done a billboard before and I don't really know what I'm doing (see askmecha thread about to go up) and also that my incompetent, slacker boss almost really seriously dropped the ball on this one and, grrrrrrrrrr.

I never knew that about the Greeks. Interesting.

Citrusfreak, I love your mom. I love that message. You'll make money and friends and you can drink beef afterward with your new friends and complain about work. It's what you're supposed to do. It's a good thing. I've been working in restaurants and retail and other hellacious jobs since I was 14. I think it has made me a better person. I hope it has at least.

not that anybody was waiting with bated breath or anything but since I still don't have dimensions but do have some better information on how to scale this monster, if there's going to be a help me design a billboard thread it will happen on monday. this has been a public service announcement of incredibly small importance.

you can drink beef afterward with your new friends

Meat liquor!

Haha! I saw that typo. I never preview. It's bad.

i'm old enough to be your mom but i occasionally hang with people younger than you (because teenagers and children love me, i just can't be bothered with tweens. Ew.) and this is the age to get weird jobs that don't pay well so much as teach you stuff. A lot of jobs are tolerable to great depending on your attitude, and it's more about the atmosphere and extras than anything else. If you need it, learnin' yerself some humility is a very good thing. Get it out of the damn way. And if you haven't ever been around people outside a certain level of privilege, get your anthropology on and learn some respect.
Now, i'm not saying the world isn't full of dirtbags and losers, it is, they just don't happen to be the ones one might expect. People prove themselves in unexpected ways, and in a world of cowards and liars, it's good to find humanity beneath it all.
Walk the world with open eyes and a lack of preconception.

Or you could just go to the places that have the most to do with your interests and lurk until they keep you, or hit people up for recommendations.

GO FOR THE FREEBIES AND PERKS AND HEALTHY ATMOSPHERE.
Or put up a bunch of flyers and make your own job.

Go get the quickest job that will take you as you plan for something more interesting, but personally i think working in hospitality is a good idea.
Now you figure out what it is that you really want, can tolerate, and wouldn't mind, and i'll give you a more focused blather.

I love the responses I get here.

It's not so much about "oh such and such a job is beneath me." My favorite jobs so far have been custodial/blue collar jobs (basic landscaping, putting down epoxy floors). I enjoy them! It's more an issue of "oh my god not retail no oh no please god no not retail again anything about retail." You can also substitute retail with "anything to do with food service." Bad experiences with both of those types of jobs.

But you're right. I should probably just suck it up and get it done, perhaps while holding out hope for a better type of job. I'm applying to everything right now and hopefully I'll hear back from enough places to have the luxury to pick and choose.

Please continue your blathering!

Oooh boy. Ain't nothing like mothers.

But I'm an only child to late-starting parents and could write a book on the whole smothered in cotton-wool whilst simultaneously being poked and prodded thing. They still try it on. Good god, woman - I'm turning 36. I might possibly be able to handle shit without you by now. Like buying a house with my husband and sorting out insurance.

/rant

CitrusFreak, if you don't want to do the waiting/food-service thing, have you considered call-centre jobs? Boring as hell but easy and you don't always have to do the cold-calling stuff. Sure, they'll monitor you more than your mother, but it's sure easy to walk out of one and into the next.