braintissue

I think it was yesterday that I became completely faithless in the way that things are shaping up in this country. Everything is ass-backward and the wrongest of the wrong are the ones being bailed out. Meanwhile, people are still losing their livelihoods, their homes, their families.

I must have been either really desperate, bored, something else that equates to those two things, because I am not the one to be one of those home party consultants. Thankfully the person I signed under is a good friend of mine, otherwise I would not have been convinced that perhaps this is something that is supposed to take me to yet another place where I need to be in life. I keep on thinking this way and hopefully one day it will be true.

However…

Given the shape of things as they are right now, I thought better than to ask the question of why I should sell PartyLite candles. I thought better because all the time there has been the reason blatantly there and in front of my face for the rest of the world to see but for me to totally just not see - Maybe I am supposed to be cutting my teeth on other kinds of writing, or maybe I am supposed to make friends who also sell these lovely, clean burning candles, or maybe…aww, who knows? The reason for this blog is because I am truly a statistic now in that I am educated and continuing to get that way, am jobless even though I am educated, am embittered because I did what all those who want to have a good job go and do - get an education. And this is not to say that people who “do” these kinds of businesses are not smart, but it is to say that people like me are not that great at this sort of thing and I am truly hoping that what I tell people here in this part of my blog (I tend to think of braintissue.today.com as the place where all my personalities have their very own say so…yes, even the one whom I refer to as Loretta who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, curses like a sailor, and a host of other things that most women who are not me balk at the idea of admitting to doing!) will prompt them to have a damned PartyLite candle party.

The idea that we are all in this crappy economy together is wrong

Make no mistake - the more that I think about this, the more I am convinced that we are in this economy on two sides of very different ideals. There is the side of this mess where people are convinced that this will all come to an end and that our current President will be the hero of the day. I hate to burst your bubble, kids, but that ain’t gonna happen, and I will tell you why. Though he is a very nice man, a great public speaker, a knowledgeable scholar, after seeing all that I have seen I am convinced that this man has no real clue of what is really going on in this country. We are in the middle of the very worst economic time since the last recession. This time, though, there are a lot of other, more heinous things that have happened since then, with one of those things being that we are too eager to pander to the countries of the world to get stuff made cheap so that the rich folks can get richer and the rest of us can just go screw ourselves.

Yes, I am one of those people who have an unfailing faith in things bigger than we are, so much so that I even write another blog about it. However, when enough is enough, it is truly, truly enough. We have been battered, bounced around, told that things will get better all while we are being also shown that in this economy, we, the People, are not the ones who matter. Of course, us spending our money matters, and us applying for loans matters, and us doing a whole lot of things that we all did when things were falsely better, we are expected to do still, even though our income is not commensurate with our expenditures. The thing that told me this first was this $4,500.00 “credit” we would get if we decided to trade in our “junk” cars that are too old, whose motors are too big…etcetera, etcetera…but what a lot of people do not understand is that I happen to know (I asked a car salesman) how much they mark up the price on a car.

Roughly, 5,000.00 . NOW, we are expected to give up the cars that we, the People, who love our American Heavy Metal, are being asked to give up our way of life for a credit on a new car that may or may not end up being the one that we love. I am sorry, but it is going to take a lot more than 4500 bucks to make me give up my beloved 99 Mustang GT. I LOVE big motors. I will take the roar and the growl of a V8 long before I will bother with the savings promised with these smaller, imported, NOT TRULY AMERICAN cars. I would sooner spend the money in gas in my big old 4.6L SOHC motor than I would take one red cent of money that sooner puts people here in this country at risk of losing their jobs here in this country. Though I know that most of the parts are not made here, this does not mean that the car itself is not made here, either.

Basically, from what I have been told, the 5,000.00 mark up on a vehicle is what you haggle over with the car salesperson when you buy a new car. So guess what? Those same guys who got bailed out before are the ones who were bailed out this time, too and what’s more, the government has decided that they will “give away” a 4500 dollar credit to an ignorant-to-the-fact that the 4500 is still 500 less than the wiggle room you have when you buy a car anyway and since it is that they are “giving” you this credit for a new car, this makes it less your inclination to try to haggle the price lower because you were just given that “credit.”

Apparently, there are people who have jobs…

I signed up with PartyLite for one reason and one reason only - I cannot find a job anywhere, and I figure that since I have no luck with that job hunt, I might as well try my luck at selling candles that smell good enough to eat. I can’t really screw this up too much because it is basically one of those products that sells themselves (I swear, if I could eat the candles and be sure that they tasted the way that they smell I would never have to go to the grocery store again because I would live on the candles). I have bought PartyLite candles in the past, have been to a few really fun, really great candle parties, and I know that these things sell. The thing that bugs me the most about this whole ordeal of “fill out an application, wait, call, wait, email, wait, fill out an application…” is not that I am not being hired but because of the reason that I am not being hired.

I am overqualified.

I am too qualified for many of the jobs that are hiring right now, and I am not qualified enough to do what I am in school for. I have had many, many, many tearful arguments with my ailing husband about why it is that I cannot get hired, and though I know that I should not list all my educational accomplishments, my volunteerism, my background as a choreographer and studio owner, my background as a staff writer or my editorial background, my marketing background, the fact that I am a self-published author…I list them, because dammit - I worked very hard at all of these things and I am sorry that offends a lot of people who are in charge of other people for anything other than their accomplishments and totally because they kissed the right ass at the right time. (Yeah, I said it now deal with it)

I am convinced, probably wrongly convinced, that the reason I am not getting hired is for no other reason than that I am very good at what I do, and also because smart women scare the hell out of other women and totally scare the crap out of men, period. I am a smart woman. I know lots of other smart women, and I have been told the same things by these other smart women - they have a hard time getting hired.

I don’t want your job - I want a job!

So maybe I won’t be too terribly bad at selling PartyLite candles. Who knows? It might be exactly what else I am good at and don’t even realize it yet. I am not afraid to try, and man, do I hope that I don’t fall completely and flatly on my face doing this. I don’t crumble too easily, and I am actually great in front of a crowd. I have a lot of ideas to market them, but the sad fact is that a lot of people believe they do not have the money to buy candles. I could totally hook up with a coven or some eco-people who would rather spend the money using one less lightbulb.

Not too much scares me, but this does, and I am not sure if it is a scary scared or a fluttery scared.

The point of this blog

Lots of people are starting to go the route of self-employment. It is not a road that too many travel and come away from being able to deal with the responsibility let alone all the maybes. Yet there is not a lot that can be done about not being hired right now. Not a lot of people are hiring, and for every one job it seems that there are ten acceptable applicants, and the worst part about this is that the one hiring is the one who is looking at the applications and scanning them for people who are smarter than they are. This is sick and sad, but it is true. I have this friend. Her name is Vanessa. This girl is probably the very brightest person her young age who I know who is capable of so many different things, who is well educated, who is an employer’s dream come true. This girl can school any man, can do the job of ten women, and is one of those people who an employer can totally depend on to get the job done.

Problem is, the economy sucks.

I also know this one lady who is a fantastic writer, a masterful communicator, is educated, self-published and well-respected in the circles where authors and readers collide like stars in the great, wide sky. This broad can’t get hired to save her damned life!

And why?

Because. Because employers are no longer looking for quality workers. They are looking for people who will kiss their asses for no perks, no health insurance, no retirement benefits, and nothing other than a paycheck and that is just the way that it is going to go, dammit.

I have applied here, there and everywhere, and now it has come to me trying to get a part time job in a health club so that I can continue to write my blogs and my books, and also to sell the hell out of these smelly, pretty candles, so that I don’t have to sit here and complain about the waning economy. Yep - that’s me…the Candle Lady.

That was supposed to make me feel better about the whole thing

…but it didn’t, because as of this moment, I am still not employed, still scared of the rejection that comes with being a distributor, still worried that I am going to be stuck in this damned tiny little house all while begging God to please let me go back home to the desert! That is what this is all about. My husband, God save him, is very sick. Though I am one to believe that what we think about becomes our reality, I am also thinking that I knew a long time ago that he would end up with these kinds of health issues. When you are raised to believe that you are not as smart or good or whatever, as so and so acts like they are, you are inclined to believe that you are not. I wish like hell that he was not sick, that I did not care, and that I was not as homesick as I really am, but wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up faster.

I am not sure what the hell this particular blog is about other than that I am now a PartyLite candle consultant and that if we do not bother to help ourselves, we might as well just move to Mexico because our chances of being able to get our money that we lost to the economy and the banks and the mortgage industry is as good as our being the one who opens the door and finds the PCH Prize Patrol on the other side of it holding one of those big giant checks and shoving a mic into our faces while we try hard to catch our breath because we won the Super Prize! I think I have grown past the idea that at the moment I will end up being anywhere near hired by anyone, at least not on a full time basis. I will take part time at two jobs, sell my candles, write my books, do my best, and know that what I am doing is sending us well on our way to that place we call home!

MAPU

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