Ready, Set, Go!

I have one week left.  If you've been paying attention, you know what I'm talking about.  I'm quitting my job, but I'm not just going to sit around.  I'm hoping to get my creating back into full swing.  I'm itching to go outside and do an oil painting of our peach tree that always blooms too early so that the frost kills all chances of fruit.  I'm looking forward to taking my bike out for rides.  I'm excited to take time to fix and then fire up my kiln.  I'm looking forward to throwing more stuff on the pottery wheel.  I plan to put my etsy shop creation into full swing.  If you see anything you like, please support me and buy it.  I know that running a business is more than having an etsy shop, but that seems like a good first step.  If you haven't checked it out yet, do so now!  I want to live a little more than I have been.  I'm both excited and nervous.

My Etsy Shop

New Beginnings

If you're close with me and we've talked recently, you probably know I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my job.  I graduated with an art degree in 2012, moved to Texas, and almost immediately landed a retail job working at a craft store.  I started out part time, and I loved it.  As with every job I have had, I gave this one 110%.  After a year and a half, I was moved to full time and promoted to keyholder.  It took me awhile to get into the groove of being in charge and working twice as many hours... along with my commute.  Yes, this retail job put 50 miles a day on my car.  I was really happy with the promotion, though, because I figured that even if this job wasn't what I really wanted to do forever, I would rather be in a job where I feel like I'm going somewhere than in one that is stagnant.  Also, full time was really good for whacking loans in the head with a big stick.

Now I have been full time and management for a year, and though I feel I'm used to the position now, I've grown to dislike it.  Every day there is some sort of customer service thing that I have to mediate or alleviate - you know, bend over backwards to make the customer satisfied.  Sometimes I don't like the choices of my coworkers that add extra stress to my plate.  Every night that I close some part of the store has been torn apart by someone, or random things have been stashed in random places and I have to locate them and put things back where they go.  How many nights can I handle straightening the same t-shirts, picking up the same pile of stickers and putting them up, being excited to finally sell an annoying product only to have it re-ordered and replaced?  The monotony has begun to set in.  The frustration at a long commute for a meager wage and monotony no longer seems worth it.  There are obviously a lot of things I have loved about this job - most of them being the people, my coworkers that have become friends, and the repeat customers that know me by name and who I know by name.  I see certain people in line and I have their tax exemption form ready to apply to their order.  I will be sad to not have interactions with these people on a regular basis.

I believe that with every job and person there is an expiration date - that a time comes when it's time to move on.  I have reached mine.  It might seem stupid or irresponsible to put in my notice now, when I don't have a new job lined up yet, but it feels like the right thing.  My last day of work will be January 31, 2015.  I look forward in the next couple months to being a sister and a daughter, helping with planning my sister's wedding in March.  I look forward to turning 25, being a maid of honor, and stepping out again trying to figure out what to do next with my life.  I'm hoping to take some time to reflect and make stuff and see if I can sell it, you know, start my own business - then begin a job search, looking for companies closer to where I live.  I might be ok with retail again if it was part time, close by, and in a smaller store, though I think I'd also like working in a small cafe or coffee shop, and I already know I enjoy office jobs.  If you know of anything close to Duncanville or Cedar Hill, Texas that you think I'd enjoy, let me know.  I'm open to ideas.

wishing to be bookish?

My optimism regarding work has been failing lately.  I thought that after the holidays I would return to my regular delighted self, but I think I have hit the wall where retail is concerned.  I was talking to a good friend, probably my best friend, tonight about this frustration and not feeling satisfied where I am at -- and I hate not feeling satisfied where I am, I am a silver linings girl through and through, always looking at the bright side and pushing on.  But I never wanted to work in retail as a career.  This was a job for me, something to do and pay off student loans while I was figuring out what I really wanted to do.  I didn't realize the toll it would take on me, on my personal life.  I have no personal life.  And I feel like I have lost my mind.  I don't want to live this way.  I only have one life and I don't want to waste it doing something that drains me so completely when I am not there.  I asked my friend what he could see me doing -- and he said working as a librarian or actually doing art, either doing my own thing, or having a job as an artist - working in a collaborative team.  I've definitely been thinking about doing the independent artist thing, in fact, in my frustration with life today I spent some time on Amazon and ordered five or six books on starting your own business/small business/business plans.  (If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right.)  When I got off the phone with my friend, I got online and looked up library and information science masters programs.  According to Forbes, library and information science is a waste of a master's degree, though I think they are looking at it from a money angle, and you won't get rich being a librarian.  But from a personal mental health perspective, I think it may be a wonderful option.  To become a "professional librarian" you need to have a degree in it; it's hard to get hired otherwise.  I found a couple programs that have completely online options, like Texas Women's University, and would probably go that route if I decided to become a librarian... so that I don't have to move just to get another degree.  The only annoying thing is of course having to take the GRE which feels like an annoying hassle, though I'm sure I would do fine on the test.

I dunno.  Librarianship seems like it might be a wonderful sort of career.  Books, crochet, ceramics... bliss.  They all sort of go together.