SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY...

I'm SO afraid to mention anything about this here for fear that I will jinx it, but here goes nothin!

We [All About Buford] recently heard from our potential agent-rep about our video and it was good. Very, very good. She wants to submit us to a Northeast region conference that would have us some mini-touring in the college circuit and get the ball rolling for us. With that momentum, we would be submitted to the national conference in September '04 and would likely be working for very good $$ touring around the country at colleges. That works out great for me as I'm looking to add to my bling bling collection:

Whoooooya! Things are not set in stone yet, but look very, very promising. There's still talking to be done within the groups, plans to be made, money to be saved, etc. But the end product is the same: dream come true. I'll be singing and working as a musician professionally and making far more money than I am right now. It's still a little shocking that this may actually happen, but I've busted my ass for a VERY long time and paid my dues. We ALL have in this group - and I think we deserve it.

It also couldn't come at a better time as I feel it is inevitable that I will be fired fairly soon. I know I say that all the time - but I'm pretty certain it's for real now. I've been spoken to quite a bit about my absences, and even the director of HR has inquired about how much time I've taken off. (That's a whole other story about deceit and faux-friendship, but I digress) I think I am very-well liked at work, and my work is good - I'm just not here very much and that leads to problems. I know it, they know it.

What I'm hoping is to wean myself out of here: slowly leave by going to a part-time status, and then leave altogether at some point if they need me to. It would suck to be completely fired, so hopefully we'll be able to work out a mutual agreement. I think that would be possible since we all like each other so much. In fact, I think my boss P is genuinely one of the coolest people I've met. (no, she does not read this and I am not sucking up) I like her a real lot - and if I leave, I would like it to be on good terms.

So this got me thinking about all of the various jobs I've held since being of age to work. It's a pretty amusing list, so I thought I'd let you take a look:

AGE 14: LIBRARY ASSISTANT. This was a really great job for me because all I really did was put books away, and sometimes I'd hide in the aisles and read. I was a book FIEND when I was a kid so I thought the library rocked. The one bad thing was that my boss had THE WORST breath EVER. I mean, this was some serious halitosis. Dental researchers would have had a feild day with that mouth.

AGE 15: I'm pretty certain that I was still underage at this point, but I was hired at Market Basket as a cashier. I HATED that job. You had to stand on your feet for 9 hours in one place. It BLEW. One time when I was working, a guy came through my line (much older - probably in his 50s) and asked me if I wanted to meet him after work and drink tequila with him. I was like, "uh, I'm 15." He said he didn't mind. Cripes. THEN, I got suspended for two weeks because my drawer was short $200. He flat out accused me of stealing the money. The thing was, at the end of the night, the cash drawers were given to the girls in the office to be counted out. (Same age as me, by the way) I'm CERTAIN one of them stole the money. After thinking about it though, if I had STOLEN money from them - all they'd do is suspend me for two weeks? "Uh, yeah. Go away for two weeks, then come back to steal again." $200 was more than I made in two weeks - so I wish I HAD just stolen it. Then I would have at least had two paid weeks off. Jackass manager.

AGE 16: TJ MAXX. I loved working there. I was the Customer Service desk Goddess and I got to do all the schedules and sign off on checks and shit like that. I felt very powerful, but didn't abuse it...I promise. I worked there with all my friends, so they'd bribe me to get the break times they wanted and we would often have antics over the loudspeaker. Good times, there. Good times.

AGE 17: BANK TELLER @ WAKEFIELD CO-OP. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I should NEVER be in charge of other people's money. Actually, I did really well there and got a basic understanding of accounting and bank reconciliation. It was an education to me. There was one girl there who thought she was THE shit, although she wasn't really anything at all. Probably still working there, actually. I worked there with a friend from High School. The funny thing is, years later I met that friend's cousin in college and he became my first love: J. Funny how things work out.

AGE 18: I have NO clue what I did this year. I seriously can't remember. That's kind of scary.

AGE 19: ADMISSIONS OFFICE ASST/ALUMNI OFFICE. This was my first "office" job. I hated it then, and I hate it now. I hated it so much that I couldn't tell you one thing about where I worked or who I worked with. It's almost been completely erased from my memory.

AGE 20: PROPANE STATION ATTENDANT. That's right folks, I filled up propane tanks all day long. I got paid $10 an hour to hang out with my friends in the office, watch TV, write, read, and maybe once or twice a day fill up a tank that usually had a good-lookin' man attached to it. Why the hell did I ever give up that job??

AGE 20: SUB MAKER. Step right up and I'll make you the most gigantic sub you've ever seen! Yessirree boy, I made some kick-ass subs. I worked there with 5 of my friends in college and we had a great time. We eventually had to quit because he couldn't give us enough hours, but we all had a lot of fun there. Plus, we lived just above the sub shop so the commute couldn't have been better!

AGE 20:: TELEMARKETER. It does blow as much as you think it does. I assure you. The only saving grace was that my boyfriend and I worked together and also with my pal Kenny and we would go daily to the Pizza Hut buffet lunch and Dairy Queen to escape the madness.

MMMM. Dairy Queen.

AGE 20/21: NURSING HOME RECEPTIONIST. This place looked like a palace. I remember that I was mostly bored out of my skull there. There was no internet, so I did a lot of homework and reading. Occasionally people would stop by and save me from my lonely existence. Still, I liked my bosses there and they thought I was a great worker.

AGE 21 (or so): AUTO BODY RECEPTIONIST. Talk about OUT-OF-PLACE. I worked with a bunch of grease monkeys (but they were HOT), and my boss was a pompous, bloated windbag. I had to be there at 8am almost every morning and that just didn't work with my schedule, so I didn't show up. Imagine my surprise when I was fired!

AGE 22: VOICE TEACHER. Yeehaw! I was actually doing something with my music education and felt like I was influencing in a positive way. I did that full-time out of college. It was great because I made very good money. I gave that up to move to NYC and lost all of my students. Dumbass!

AGE 23: ADMISSIONS OFFICE/Berklee College of Music. How great is it to be able to take courses, meet famous musicians, and hang with some seriously talented people? It was a great place for me to be. The pay was shit, though, so I had to leave.

SOMETIME IN MY 20'S - IT'S ALL A LITTLE HAZY: I did double duty in the office and teaching at Brookline Music School and Winchester Music School. Both places were FAR too pretentious - way snottier than they had any right to be. At Winchester, I worked with a girl who made every day there a living hell. She was a total bitch who PRETENDED to have diabetes. I mean, what the fuck?? I very distinctly remember one day I put a sign out saying that a class was canceled and then when I left the room, she crossed it out in big red X's and wrote CANCELLED (note the TWO L's). She then proceeded to tell the director (in FRONT of me) that I can't spell to which the director replied: "actually, she's correct. It's spelled both ways." Yeah, I loved that moment.

PRESENT DAY: PAYROLL ACCOUNTANT. When I think about it, it's kind of amazing that I got the job that I have. I had virtually NO payroll experience. I do love where I work right now. I realized that this is my 5th year here. This is the longest I've ever been ANYWHERE (as illustrated by the above). While the job itself gets tedious and boring, I love the people I work with and the perks are really the best. I will actually be sad when it's time for me to leave.

VOICE TEACHER/MUSICIAN: Still kickin' it with the voice students and building a waitlist for next season. My plan is to supplement my tour salary with teaching. We'll do clinics and seminars as a group, but I'm also going to do in-school workshops with chorus' and bands on improvisation and eurythmics. I'll also have a bigger teaching roster and will hopefully fill in with some more studio and voice over work.

It's funny, because we just did a masterclass with a Dorchester classroom the other day. One of the girls was a rapper and she was REALLY good. She asked us if anyone ever tries to put us down for doing what is our dream, because she heard that a lot and all she wanted to do was rap and dance. At the time I said no and that she should always be brave enough to follow her dreams. I said no because I didn't think anyone ever has tried to talk me out of it.

Recently, after talking to some people about the tour possibility, I got a lot of semi-negative feedback. Mostly backhanded "well, what will you do for health insurance" "you won't make enough money" "what about retirement" - all the comments that had that tone of it's not a REAL profession.

After thinking about it, I realized that there always HAVE been people who try to talk what I do down. I didn't realize it because I just never listened...and I never will.

- posted by Taunia @ 4:00 PM