With Arms Outstretched

A New Fiscal Year?

The New Year is so convenient for rethinking the way I live and the things I do, especially when school doesn’t begin until the 16th and I have no “real” job to occupy this time, but that’s exactly the first thing that occupies my mind when evaluating where I’m going. I’ve never quite adjusted to my TA pay, I’ve actually handled the over 50% cut in income very poorly. I still live like I did this time last year to the detriment of my bank account and change is very, very hard. Living alone definitely compounds the problem with having to foot the entire bill for all the utilities, trying to cook economically for one, and either failing in that or just deciding to meet a friend for dinner to make up for the lack of human companionship that comes with not having a roommate to come home to.

But it’s not the pain of seeing my dwindling account and mounting bills that stings the most, it’s, rather, the resentment that builds up when you don’t feel adequately compensated. It’s also problematic, for me, that it seems COM doesn’t quite respect student payment in the first place; maybe I’m spoiled to always being paid, be it at Berry or Settebello or even the Fannin Inn, on a biweekly basis, but I’ve found myself five steps behind every month due to COM (or is it BU’s?) end of the month pay schedule. It’s not just that we only get one check at the end of the month, it’s that I’m not paid in a timely matter and so I find myself working and then getting paid several weeks after the fact. I almost had a meltdown at the beginning of the school year when I found out there would be no monies for a month and that after a summer of not being paid I still had to wait till October in order to have any cash in my account.

And then there’s my odd job I did for the Haneke Conference at the end of October for which I was finally paid just last week. Two months later! And what was even more stressful about that is the added burden of having to foot the bill for the DV tapes myself; the $94 was paid over a month ago, a purchase I made on my credit card because I naively assumed I’d be reimbursed and paid before the bill came due.

But what always takes the cake is the unpaid internship. 95% of the time, I really don’t mind working at the museum for free. Not only do I have nothing else to do with that time, I am learning so much, getting experience I’d never get elsewhere, and really enjoying myself. But there’s always a moment, every few weeks or so, when it’s very clear that someone I’m working for is taking the volunteer for granted and using me to pick up the slack when they’ve lollygagged for three days straight or just plain do the work for them. It is on these days that I’m ever thankful that I live where I do and can have a therapeutic walk home rather than stuffing myself on a train. Maybe that was the problem in DC, not being able to have a moment to breathe in the stuffy swamp.

So here I am, the beginning of my last semester, and even though I have a great thesis to tackle (another entry here soon) I’m overly excited and optimistic about getting a job this summer. I’m just so sick of thinking that I could be at Taco Bell right now making more money and doing half the work. There’s a part of me, I guess this would be my brain, that realizes both that the kind of work I’m looking into doesn’t pay very well and that getting such a job will be very difficult, but the way I feel it, in my gut like Colbert, at least I’ve got a choice when this is over. It may suck for a while if I can't find a job quickly, but I’ll have the degree and I will not hesitate to tell people to piss off if their offer isn’t acceptable.

And that is what I'm looking forward to in 2008.

Labels: COM, monies, museum bitch, new year

posted by Alison @ 3:59 PM