The Best Job

while laying (lying?) in bed this morning after phillip left for work, i started thinking about how much it sucks to be unemployed. i hate it. no, i loathe it. i hate sitting at home with no money coming into my bank account. i feel like a big, lazy blob who is sponging off her husband. i know these thoughts are irrational, but that's what i was thinking.

then i started thinking about the best jobs i've ever had. i've had a LOT of jobs since i started working when i was 14. i worked at k-mart when i was 15 and liked it. i was the ticket booth girl for five summers at a NY state park. that job was freakin' awesome! i got to be outside all day long and i read at least 5 books a week. the downer was that i only got paid a whopping $4.75 an hour. but there was no stress and i got to swim in the lake for free.

but i think the BEST job i ever had was when i worked as a chambermaid at at motel in rockport, ma. i worked there for 3 seasons while i was in college. it was awesome. the shifts were as long or as short as you wanted. if you had 5 rooms to clean and you did them in an hour, you only got paid for the hour. if you had 5 rooms to clean and you spent and hour on each, you'd get paid for a 5 hour day. i didn't get paid all that much (i think about $5.50/hour) but some days i'd leave there with $50 in tips. or sometimes people would leave behind things they couldn't/didn't want to pack. i got my first Krupps coffee maker that way.

i think the reason i loved the job so much was because i was inside and outside all day long. yes, it was a bitch in the summer when it got to be 90 degrees. but i always knew that sweet air-conditioned relief would come to me as soon as a guest left their room and i could get in and clean it.

there was a lot of waiting around for people to leave their rooms. especially during the busy weekends like memorial day, fourth of july, and labor day. some weeks the motel would be booked solid and i'd have 10 or more rooms to clean. it was back breaking labor, but i loved it so much. i didn't like the cleaning up after people part, but i liked entering a room that's in disarray and being able to put it back together before the people got back. there's something totally satisfying in that.

i also loved my co-workers. the women i worked with were from hard working, blue collar, lower middle class backgrounds. these women were real. if they had something to say, they would say it. and if it hurt your feelings, tough shit. but they were also the types to lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on if you needed it. i made so many friends while working there. but it always made me sad when my 'season' was over and i had to go back to school. but the best thing was that i knew i'd see them the following summer.

so after thinking about how awesome that job was, i decided to get my lazy ass out of bed and clean the apartment. i went about it the same way i cleaned the rooms at the motel. now, our apartment wasn't super messy, but it could use a good dusting and vaccuming. i started at about 9am and by the time i got to the other side of the house, it was 12:00. three straight hours of cleaning and doing laundry and dishes and organizing and dusting and vacuuming! the house looks awesome. i'm positive phillip will be impressed when he gets home from work tonight.

now i don't feel so lazy. or so down about my unemployment. i know i'll get the call sometime soon. i just have to be more patient. and in the mean time, i'll make sure the house stays sparkling clean. there's no excuse not to.