Retail rant.

So I'm starting a new job tomorrow. The UVSC bookstore needs people to help with the buyback at the end of the semester, so I've been hired as a temporary for the month of April. (Tomorrow is my first training.) Taking a temporary job kind of sucks because it requires finding something else immediately, but it seemed worth it me for the pay. I've recently decided that it just really isn't worth it to take a job that pays minimum wage or even a dollar over. If I'm going to work a ton of hours all the time, I want to make a reasonable wage. The thing that frustrates me is the fact that the only jobs that are available to me seem to be retail jobs.

Honestly, I hate, despise, and loathe retail. My experience in retail is thus: you are one of many undervalued employees who have to spend 39 and a half hours a week on your feet being yelled at and having a constantly changing schedule and being called in to work on all the days you actually plan to do something fun. And if you accidentally break the 40 hour limit, you are lectured endlessly because the store does not want to have to actually give you benefits for working for them. (They figure, "Who really likes to go to dentists and doctors anyway? We're simplifying their lives by making sure they don't have the option at all since we don't pay them enough to afford medical bills without insurance!" How very kind they are, don't you think?)

It gets old.

And so I took this temporary job with the firm resolution that I will find something better for the summer. I'm not talking glamorous or fabulous-- just something that pays reasonably that I don't hate, loathe, and despise. Why should I undervalue myself enough to take a job like that? I don't know what I'll end up doing, but it will be better than retail.