Perhaps it's a pattern

Someone who uses her sick days … or feigns she has them to use, what a disgrace.

I do not like being closely questioned about what doctor or not I did or not consult during my mid-week illness. Would someone like to hear disturbing things that can't be responded to about my uterus, perhaps?

Looking back, my first jobs disintegrated on their own. Babysitting: the couple moved to California. Taco Bell during college: they knew my time-terms … and on the last day the A/C was out (hanging from the ceiling), and my drawer at the end of the no-electricity day [all human-based math] was at an exact $20 over. Did I take it — I who had been lectured on a few cents' difference by a manager who could not seem to keep our napkin supply adequate? No, of course, I did not steal that stupid money. What I learned was much more valuable.

I learned that I am terrible at live triple-multi-tasking, though, since then I have acquired many skills in that area; most have been while on my ass, but I trust my body could do just as well interfacing with my brain while standing. Also, no Facebook risk!

Once I quit a job with a letter. I found a replacement, though. Don't ask me why watering plants in coolers, placing pipette-tips into pipette-trays that went into the autoclave (steam sterilizer) and washing lab dishes afterhours was painful.

In many ways, I enjoyed it. Keys to a whole University Building. Flexibilty to come in whenever. Nothing difficult to do …

Then I had a job for 16 hours over one weekend during Finals (I had asked not to be put on until x-date, following Finals and a visit to my mom for Mother's Day, but …) and then I put a three-page letter in to the manager. When I went to collect my paycheck, she said something about my being an English major, but she did not note how much courage I had then to come there at all.

Having gone through the CPR and other "here are the government-approved binders of 'everyone can get this'" material at a few days' training for an overnight position at a home for developmentally disabled adtuls, I freaked out about not being able to sleep all night until my arrival at midnight, must have fallen asleep, certainly put someone's life and others' at risk and annoyance, and put the training binder into their street-side mailbox along with a letter in the morning.

When I worked at a Methodist-based social services agency, itself about 80 years old, I found myself one night upset at the computer trying to make lessons and instead crafted a six-page resignation letter. Parts of older letters were used.

I drove to the site, waited in my car until the day-care staff arrived and then put the letter clipped upright to a standing folder that was labeled "Oh no" on the cramped desk in our planning basement room. Seriously.

Then I drove to Columbia, Missouri, when I still knew how to get to the parks; I hiked around the pines. I read, in its entirety, "The Bell Jar."

My holiday season job at Bath and Body Works started one November. It crashed and burned the following April (they said it was not guaranteed to last, so I guess I was done) when, one Sunday during "change all the decorations around after hours per the hand-out from corporate (never mind that your store did not receive all the props depicted)," I happened to be painting at my other FT+ job.

We all know that Killz oil-based is a bear.

And I drove home, having overstayed, hoping we had turpintine. This place has at least three cans of paint thinner in it now.

Then, no. I freaked out and could not even bear to call and say what was going on. When you work in Beauty, you can get obsessed with how your forearms are covered in white paint.

One of my memories is of driving to Home Depot for solvents. I may or may not have found them, but either way, I was discouraged and gave up.

I sent a letter a few days later through the mail. I never did get the four books back I had lent to a fellow "associate." But I did not have the courage to go and try.

The last job I had I quit all properly, with my eyes off-focus and my rhetoric spilling out.

Before that, I was not so much fired as lied to and not paid.

The IRS experiences are varied:

first time: quit during slowing down season, and legally;

later: quit by calling in a bunch and saying I was ill / I was in school and then using my ID to get in between shifts and leave notice in my "in box" folder file on the desk outside supervisor's office by the "25¢ coffee" pot;

last time: quit by calling in and never hearing back and so being labeled a.w.o.l:

The fact that they keep sending the generic postcard to sign up for next season is charming.