During a conversation with my manager this morning, she mentioned that her manager– the district manager– had told her that “We want people who are passionate about our products. We don’t want people working here if they’re doing it for the money.”
To which the manager (internally, because she doesn’t want to be fired), went “you’ve got to be fucking shitting me.”
Here’s the thing: it is totally possible to do a job for the passion and not be obsessively thinking about the money every minute of every day. In fact, there have been economic studies regarding that very thing.
You know when it starts?
When the employee in question is making $50-75k per year.*
That’s the starting point of financial security. That’s the point when you’re fairly secure that you’re going to have rent, food, and basic living expenses covered.
I’ve worked a lot of jobs over the years. A lot. I saw the same working as a freelancer– when I charged lower rates, my clients treated me like shit and acted like they were doing me a favor; when I charged more, they respected me as a professional. A newspaper that started out paying me above market wage also treated me very kindly, because they started with the assumption that I was a human being who needs to eat.
In my experience, the employers that insist that your job be your “passion” are also the ones that pay you nothing and treat you like garbage. It’s exactly like abusive people, who tell you that you would put up with their abuse if you “loved them enough”. It’s a way of convincing the victim that they’re responsible for their own mistreatment, which is absolutely fucked up.
Here’s my advice to you:
It is absolutely okay to take a job that doesn’t pay you what you deserve– you’ve got to eat, after all. But don’t think for a second that you have a responsibility to that job. If you see something available that pays better and treats you better, take it and don’t look back. Don’t waste an ounce of sympathy for employers who try to convince you that passion is an acceptable substitute for survival.
I work at a shitty retail job. They do not pay us a living wage. Meanwhile, they work us to death. Anyone who can leave, has left.
And the other day my manager has the audacity to say that “we all chose to work retail.”
Nah, bro. You chose to work retail. The rest of us had something terrible happen (mental illness, job loss, family issues) and then got stuck here. If a store or a warehouse or anything opened up next door offering full time jobs with benefits, most of us would nope out without a second thought. There would be no one left. To say that we “chose” to work retail is the height of white collar hubris when Most of us chose not to starve.
Can I do a total honesty thing? You know what my #1 obstacle to writing is? Working. This week, my bosses decided to “punish” me by cutting my hours, and you know what happened? I wrote a ton. Every hour I should have been working I spent writing instead, and it was awesome and fabulous and fantastic. I probably wrote over 10,000 words in a week.
(That’s a big number for me, by the way. I know some people can write that in a day, but I don’t. Some months I only write 25,000 words or less)
And the thing is, I didn’t try to write more. I didn’t drag myself to the library, put myself on the clock, and say “I’m going to sit here until I’ve clocked X number of hours writing.” I didn’t try to fill the hours I would have been working with words.
I did it anyway.
This is so motivating and yet so, so disappointing. Because it’s just one week, right, so it’s a skewed sample size, but it also points out something I was so, so reluctant to acknowledge. Working full time has harmed my writing. It has sucked the life and the energy out of me so that when I come home at night, all I want to do is crawl into bed. Sometimes I force myself to write anyway, but my pace is different, and my sessions are short. I don’t start two hour sessions that result in 2000 word scenes. I write for half an hour and give up after 300 words.
So obviously I’ve got to figure out how to make a change. I know my current job is killing me. Maybe the best I can hope for is that by getting a new one, the strangulation, the complete cutting off of all my creative air, won’t be so bad?
(I just hope they don’t want me to work more than forty hours. Because I can’t. I just really can’t.)
We were friends, but not close friends. We always hung out with other people, and I went over to her house a grand total of once. Our interests in actual activities barely overlapped; I was in band, and I don’t know that she had extracurriculars. Did we have an ASL club? Or a French club? Maybe track? Time has fogged that memory, but I remember that she had great taste. She introduced me to Firefly, and, indirectly, Doctor Who. She was a pop culture fiend in a way that I never was, and still can’t be.
She was pretty. So pretty. Classically attractive with a slim figure that had exaggerated hips and a bust, although everything was small. She was small; smaller than me, the perpetual giant in every room.
(As an aside, I remember my lunch in freshman year as a study in contrasts. Me, the Scandinavian Frost Giant, 5’9’’, 230 pounds, sitting with a petite Guatemalan and two itty bitty Indians. I loved them, adored them, but sometimes that contrast, in size and in skin, hurt.)
Everything about her screamed femininity. Tailored clothes, perfect makeup. Hair dyed cheaply but frequently, and sometimes, in the extremely low-key method of just using John Frieda shampoo.
(It worked, believe it or not. In her senior year, my junior year, her hair attained a faint, reddish sheen.)
She was more fashionable than me, more knowledgeable than me, more informed. A sharp edge honed her speech, not unkind but biting all the same.
In high school, my identity was default heterosexual. I’d had crushes on boys, but I didn’t realize that liking girls—really liking girls—was ever an option. Still, I remember thinking about her late at night. Not in the desperate, lonely way I thought of my crushes, but with curiosity. Detached, reserved, wondering.
(Would I like to kiss her? Would she kiss me? What circumstances would even prompt it if we did? We were friends. Not even great friends. Just… friends.)
In retrospect, most of my crushes in high school weren’t based on sexual desire; they were based on personality. On validation. I liked guys because they were nice and interesting and well-liked, and because sometimes, they seemed to like me too, in an acquaintance, casual companion sort of way. I don’t remember physical attraction; I don’t remember imagining kisses. I don’t remember stalking the boys’ athletic fields in the hopes that someone would take off his shirt. I never stared at lips and pictured that they were on mine, that we were together, somewhere entwined.
(I pictured her lips, though. Sweet and pink and always covered in some type of sticky gloss.)
Sometimes I wonder about crushes. About socialization and sexualities and all the tiny, infinitesimal cues that steer a person in one direction or another. Did I like her, then? In another place—in another time—would our friendship have evolved into something more? I don’t know. I’ll never know.
The surf crashed and roared against the sand. A salt breeze threaded through Tess’ black hair, whipping it back from her face. Fine-grained sand slid past the incomplete shield of her sandals, scratching her toes.
“I can’t believe a place like this exists,” she said.
Easton’s lips pinched. The expression wasn’t quite a smile. “We’ve long coasts, in this court. Some abut deserts, still others jungles. But this… this is my favorite stretch.”
It was easy to see why. The flat sands became loose and tossled as they receded from the ocean, gradually transitioning to tall, stalky grasses. In the distance a few trees, filled with fully budded deciduous trees, loomed like old, gnarled giants.
The air was hot, as she’d expected, but the moisture in it caught Tess by surprise. The thick, almost soupy air fought her for every breath.
Tess closed her eyes. The Summer Sea sounded the same as the Winter, and for a moment, she could almost see it: ink-dark waves crashing against the rocks at the base of the Keep. Wicked, ice-cold spray suspended above snow white foam.
i’m a heathen priestess in green and blue. i learn myself through ritual and spellwork, build myself, break myself, set myself free.
i wander through life, friend, counsellor, witch, expert. my own little house is tucked deep in the woods, but i’m not there much, i’m on the road, visiting communities and sites, communing with nature and the world.
there are many friends. many colleagues. many men. it’s a road of equal parts spirituality and hedonism, that is, until it ends.
the man is special to me. special in ways i can’t explain. when i visit, he holds me late at night. when we meet, he lights up the darkest day. but he never asks me to stay. he never asks me to hold his hand through life, bear his children, be his confidant and helper and friend.
i do anyway.
the baby comes as a surprise, just before my fortieth birthday. she’s blonde and small and his family, two parents, a brother and a sister, both wed, love her instantly. we move into a big house on a secluded bit of property. yellow.
we raise falcons in the yard.
i’m a career diplomat. elegant, suave, well-educated. ambassador to somewhere important, somewhere beautiful, somewhere strange.
it’s been a long life. it’s been filled with strangers and parties and spies. hard work, but it paid off, in the end.
i never found a husband. never found someone to share my life with. someone to follow me on my various treks around the world. there were contenders, but in the end, none of them stuck. they were ambitious men. they had their career and i had mine.
there was one, though. tall, dark haired, with the bright teeth of a career politician. appropriate because he was. he was, and he is, through local politics, then state, then national. on a sunny day in january he takes the oath of office on the sparkling white stairs of the capitol. a cheering crowd looks on.
weeks—months?—late we meet at my embassy. he remembers me, because of course he does. our business meeting turns into a friendly dinner turns into an evening of pleasure. it goes undiscovered. that time.
but weeks turn to months turn to years, and eventually the secret leaks, eventually the reporters come, though the statement doesn’t. not until the interview. the one meant to kick off his reelection campaign.
the one where i become the one who got away.
it ends happily. because of course it does. reelection and retirement, both his and mine. i’m not first lady, but we retire to a quiet townhouse in georgetown. i can’t resist meddling in politics, and neither can he.
we don’t grow old together. but we meet our age as friends, as compatriots, as lovers. in time and in force.
even death is quiet. relenting and sweet.
i meet him at midsummer. we dance and we laugh. when the brightness of day wanes to the eerie half-light of the midnight sun, i take him to bed.
(later, i take him outside. again and again.)
it’s a relationship founded on mischief. mischief and chance, and the feeling you get when your boundaries, your reservations, melt away. when you can say what you want, what you need, without judgment. where your wildest fantasies become truth.
we chase each other around the world. a week in austria, where i’m skiing, and another in the us after my visa expires. he finds america curious and revolting, and i have to admit, so do i. but he follows me, trip after trip, time after time, until the foregone conclusion is made.
we move to finland. we live in a tiny red house on the outskirts of a swedish-speaking village. i write books and study languages and try to ski. he works. there’s money to spare and government healthcare, and i never quite get over the outrage that, a hundred years after my ancestors immigrated to ellis island, i had to immigrate back.
our babies are enormous. blond and healthy and full of joy. they grow up happy. they grow up loved.
i live in a cozy cabin in ski country. tahoe, maybe, or park city, or breck. i spend my winters out on the slopes, my springs and falls hiking, my summers paddleboarding and swimming and lazing in the sun.
there’s writing, of course. i’m moderately famous. i’m moderately reclusive, as well. i do my book signings, but i’m content to be left in peace. to ramble the deep mountains like the half-wild creature i am.
i’m always better when i don’t have to verbalize my feelings. when i can return to my den and reflect over them and eventually capture them in words.
i teach, sometimes. skiing, not writing. writing is a knack that i’ve mastered, but never figured out how to convey. that’s all right. it’s enough to sell the words. to sell the feelings. and then to go out into the great, wild.
Why is it that I never write on this blog when I’m happy?
All right. Admittedly, that’s an oblique and stupid way to start a post. But I guess I’m oblique and stupid.
But I’m also lonely. I’m lonely and disappointed and sad, and I feel like I have nobody to talk to or unload on, so I go to the blog that nobody reads because hey, at least it’s out of my head, right?
Except for when it doesn’t leave my head. Yeah. Whoops.
I woke up this morning in a terrible mood. It was Monday morning, and it was early, and the demons got out their pitchforks and came for me.
(Please understand I mean metaphorical demons; I’m anxious and depressed, not crazy.)
Every thought I had was about how life is an endless string of disappointments and (breathes into a paper bag) is this it, god can this be it?
Needless to say, it was a fan-fucking-tastic Monday. But then I go to work, where I don’t want to be—ever—and it’s worse than usual because of course we’re understaffed, and I actually have to go back and unload the actual goddamn truck.
(Which I didn’t sign up for, but that is another story entirely).
Then there was some interpersonal bullshit. There’s this girl who usually works on a different shift than me. I ask her to cover my lunch, and she says “after so and so” gets back. Which is, okay, fine, but I suspect that she lied to me about it. Because if she didn’t ‘so and so,’ who is a very responsible person, took like a thirty minute break.
So yeah, there’s the possibility that she was telling the truth, but I really think that she just really didn’t want to cover for me. Awesome. Great. Thanks.
And so I wait for her replacement to come in. Except, after he’s more than twenty minutes late, I’m tired and hungry and nearing the end of my shift. So I go out to talk to my coworker, right, who’s unloading, but who isn’t technically on the floor. And I say ‘hey, this girl’s replacement isn’t here, can you help me out?’
And she says to call ‘so-and-so.’
And honestly, I hate recapping shit like this, because it’s so petty. Waiting two hours for my lunch is not the biggest deal in the world. Really, it’s not. I was hungry, and crabby, but I could live.
But it felt like a betrayal. This coworker and I—we’re not best buddies, but we’re friendly. And her response just felt wrong. It felt selfish and self-serving. Especially because, in the same situation, I wouldn’t have said the same. I would have said “no problem” and covered for her.
I hate my job. Everyone who knows me knows that. But until today, one of the solaces I had was that my coworkers weren’t complete shit. They were, for the most part, kind and friendly. But now that I feel betrayed, it opens up a whole new level of doubt in my mind—what if they’re pretending to like me? What if they’re saying things about me behind my back?
I know this is, mostly, unlikely. It’s the damn demons again, waving their torches around. But I can’t help but feeling like something shattered today. Something broke into pieces that I’ll never be able to stitch back together.
I may be able to get along with these coworkers. But they’ll never win back my trust.
Some people need positivity and others need realism. I just discovered which one I am.
I’ve mentioned before, on this blog and to anyone who’ll listen, that at this point, my job search feels hopeless. I won’t belabor the point; suffice to say that I feel like a square peg trying to be shoved into a hexaquadridecimal hole, and I fear that I’ll get stuck at Kohl’s forever.
Recently I’ve been receiving emails from recruiters. Most of them have sucked by miles; they’ve all been crappy sales jobs, and I have zero percent interest in sales. I hate people and I don’t want my entire salary to depend on me convincing them to buy things.
But today, I got an email from not one, but two different recruiters. And the postings sounded like something I might actually like.
Now, I understand the point of realism. It’s sensible to know that recruiters aren’t looking out for you, specifically. It’s good to realize that they may have dozens of other candidates in mind for the same job. ‘Don’t get your hopes up’ is good advice for any job seeker for any position.
But also, fuck you.
Because my whole life philosophy is ‘don’t get your hopes up.’ Don’t hope that you’ll get out of your shitty job. Don’t hope that you might one day publish your book. Don’t hope that you’ll find love or family or even people who’ll understand you. Don’t hope and you won’t be disappointed.
Screw that.
After I got that email from those recruiters today, I felt optimistic for the first time in weeks. I felt like maybe there was a snowball’s chance in Hell of changing my life. Of changing my circumstances. I didn’t need to go online, and ask an honest question, and have people shit all over me. I needed advice, yes, but I didn’t need people to tell me “tailor your resume for every position” or “the recruiter isn’t trying to get you a job” or “I get five recruiting emails a week!”
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you!
I needed to be optimistic today. It changed the way I interacted with the world. It made me a pleasant person, for the first time in a long time. I actually made small talk with my customers. Me.
So that’s my life lesson for today. Sometimes I need to hope. To dream. To believe that change is right there, waiting, at the tip of my fingers.
Sometimes I need to believe that I can reach out and grab it.
Tess woke in an unfamiliar bed. The magic of Spring curled around her like mist.
The details of the previous night drifted back to her as long tangled thorns on a vine. The highest holiday of Spring. Polaris’ interminable festival. Eating and dancing and stars, so much wine.
Tess could still taste it on the back of her tongue, pungent and vile. For a long moment, she lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling and thought of nothing more complex than hurling her guts across the room.
And then the sheets next to her moved.
A warm scent—honey, or clove—washed over her, and memories assaulted her with a flash of heat. Her young, pretty sister had gone off with some young, empty-headed fae. Easton, always the favored son, had done likewise a few hours later. Tess had been left, lonesome and angry, and after she’d downed half a cask of wine, Polaris had found her.
The argument had been ugly, short and brutal. Tess’ magic had flared, and Polaris lashed out just as fast.
They should have taken down the castle. They should have remade half the court. But instead, when the magic collided, something had happened, some tiny shift halfway in tune with nature’s course.
And now she was here. In Polaris’ bed.
She had a feeling that the sick churning in her stomach wasn’t just the aftermath of the wine.
A trace of breath stirred the hair on her neck. “You’re still here.”
The silky tones of Polaris’ voice coming from beside her, in bed, was nearly Tess’ undoing. Panic clawed at the back of her throat, and it tasted of vomit.
I am the Lady of Winter, Tess told herself. I am as cold-hearted as ice itself.
“Did you expect me to flee at dawn?” Tess said.
Polaris stretched. The movement shifted the bedcovers around Tess’ frame. Silk smoothed across bare flesh, a promise and a curse. “I expected you to start screaming about how this was a mistake hours ago. You know, after the first throes of passion faded from her mind.”
Test could hear him smirking. She kept her face expressionless, her voice flat and dull. “This was a mistake.”
Polaris had the audacity to laugh. He turned on his side, curled his body against Tess’. A hand slid out, stroking her waist. “You liked it.”
Tess couldn’t argue that. AT the time, she had. Anger had twisted the fury in her veins to passion, a lifetime worth of loathing Polaris into terrible aching lust. As a girl, Tess had wanted nothing more than Polaris’ attention, his acknowledgement, his approval in everything she did. She’d craved validation from him for more years than she could count.
She’d finally gotten it. It burned.
Carefully she untangled herself from Polaris. He didn’t latch onto her, didn’t try to resist. He was as loose and as pliable as a doll. But then, he could be. He’d already won.
“We’re not going to speak of this again,” Tess said.
Polaris raised his hands over his head, displaying acres worth of fine, golden skin. “And I suppose that decision is yours alone?”
Tess took half a moment to brace herself before she pulled back the sheet and stood. Cold air rushed in to bite at her skin. “You’re not going to tell anyone, Polaris. It will land you in a world of hurt.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a recitation of fact,” Tess said. She stooped to pluck her dress off the floor. A visceral memory hit her; Polaris’ long fingers sliding the straps of her dress down her arms. Those perpetually smiling lips clamped to her jaw.
Heat rushed over her, remembered lust and embarrassment and anger all in one. She’d have to burn the dress. Which was a shame, since she’d liked it.
Polaris had propped himself up on one elbow. Tess could feel the heat of his gaze on her skin like a brand. “I am the Lord of Spring. If it serves me to speak of what happened here, I will.”
“And will it serve you?”
Tess slid the dress over her head. It slipped into place around her, an utterly insufficient shield. “Think of all the people this will hurt, Polaris. My mother. Elidis. Your son.”
Polaris sucked in a breath, and Tess knew she’d hit home. “You know he left with another fae last night. Two other fae. Why should he care what you and I do?”
“Why should he care that his father slept with his first love? I don’t know, Polaris. I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Polaris’ eyes darkened. Outside the clouds gathered. “He’d be upset with you, too.”
“Undoubtedly,” Tess said. She made herself stand before the mirror. Her hair was a wild mass of waves. Bruises peppered her neck and her collarbones, a visual map of her shame. “But I don’t rely on Summer as an ally. You do.”
Thunder rumbled. “He is my son.”
“But not your heir.” Tess smoothed her hair back from her facie. “Kyra will inherit Spring, and Easton will inherit Summer. You have what you wanted, Polaris. A child on either throne. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it grand?”
Rain burst from the clouds in a sudden downpour. Tess strode to the door. “Give my sister my apologies,” she said. “I expect it will be quite some time before I see her again.”
You will meet many types of people in your life. You will meet delicate flowers, raging oceans, quiet forests, towering mountains, and colourful skies. You will meet thunderstorms, you will meet lightning. They will knock you down, they will leave you breathless. You will meet sunrises, you will meet gardens. They will give you light, they will take you on adventures. Explore them. Get lost with them. They all have something to teach you.
Snow draped the castle like one of Matthias’ worn blankets. Patches of creamy stone stuck through like holey knees. “This is it?”
Sven quirked an eyebrow at him. “You don’t seem impressed.”
Matthias made a face. He’d been duly impressed an hour ago when the massive stone shape of the keep had loomed up at him over wide, snow-swept fields. The aging ramparts stood sentinel over the Louir River valley, displaying crenellations and arrow windows that had been in vogue not so long ago. Riding his stout little pony, shaking and starving and half-mad from the cold, Matthias had felt, vaguely, like he’d slipped backwards in time. Like he wasn’t a disgraced lord from modern, progressive Crannarch, but a dirt-poor peasant on a desperate journey to win favor from his liege lord.
The sensation had faded, but Matthias’ trepidation hadn’t. He blew into his stiff hands. “Are we going to be allowed inside?”
Sven grinned. His bulk was made for this kind of weather, and more than once Matthias had envied him his fur coat. “If we weren’t going to be allowed in, we wouldn’t have made it past the guards.”
Matthias frowned. He turned on the spot peering back over his shoulder. The thick walls of the keep loomed before him. Though he stood on heavy stone pavers, he’d yet to pass through a gate. There was no drawbridge, no moat.
But something niggled at him. The last stretch of the road had been narrow. It had passed through a series of switchbacks as it had climbed to the mountain’s top. Matthias hadn’t thought about the entrance, he’d been too cold and too tired and too hungry, but there had been more than one place where there’d been stone on both sides.
Stone towers. Tall enough to hide more than one guard.
Sven’s persistent smile held a knife’s edge. “Welcome to the Kingdom of Shadows,” he said. “Watch your every step.”
Lia lifted the hanger from her wardrobe. A cream skirt, gauzy and full, spilled onto the ground.
“Well then,” she told Carlotta. “Apparently the dress code has changed.”
Carlotta, perched on the edge of Lia’s bed, pursed her lips. When Lia had emerged from her bath, steam pink and shrouded in a robe two sizes too big, Carlotta had already been there, waiting. It was only Carlotta’s persistence that had persuaded Lia to open the wardrobe. It was only Carlotta’s refusal to leave that saw Lia still standing rather than curled up in her bed.
Lia stretched up on her toes to hang the dress off the edge of the doorjamb. It was, truly, a magnificent confection. Gold embroidery modelled after a popular brocade pattern, lined the bodice before flowing out onto the skirt. The tulle that gave the dress its shape glimmered in the light from the roaring fire.
The neckline fell well below the clavicle, displaying the skin of the wearer’s neck and chest. It was the latest fashion sweeping the continent, popular and scandalous in equal turns. Apparently one of the Grand Duchesses had banned it.
Lia crossed her good arm over her bad.
“You have to put it on,” Carlotta said. “You have to put it on, and you have to come. You know what will happen if you don’t.”
“Do you really think the King of Shadows will come up here and haul me to dinner in my nightclothes?”
“He won’t,” Carlotta said. “But Marvin might. Marvin or Erling or Bay…”
A shudder rippled down Lia’s frame. Her hand squeezed, almost involuntarily, around her upper bicep. “Do I have to wear this dress?”
“It was a gift,” Carlotta said. “You know how he is about gifts.”
Lia’s hand drifted to her neck. “I know. But all that skin…”
Carlotta arched an eyebrow. “Modesty? From you?”
Lia gave her an arch look. “I have bruises. From combat.”
Carlotta’s eyes flashed. She stood up, and the silk of her own dressing gown rippled around her, a shining sheet of pink. “Just put it on, Lia. You’ll look beautiful. Bruises or no.”
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