He knows what He's doing

Even when things aren’t going exactly how I think they should, I am always sure that there is a reason they are going the way they are and God will use them in the future.

Sometimes, times such as the past few weeks I start to forget that there is always a reason God does what he does. And even when I remember this is true, it doesn’t mean I always or even usually like it. It does seem to be true in my life, and I think in most, that when we experience the highest highs and lowest lows that we run to God, fall at the feet of the Lord in a way we do not tend to do on a daily basis, or at times we try to turn away from Him all together. I try to live daily with God, no matter what the current circumstances, but the past couple weeks I have gone back and forth between running to the Lord in need seeking his care and protection and then trying to run away from Him and my current struggles.

But this time, maybe because of being in situations similar to these in the past, maybe from grower a little wiser over the years, and also probably because of lack of other options, lack of places to run or people to run to, I have been forced to stick in there and wait it out, wait on the Lord, and what he has for me. This has been hard for me, and I have questioned my choice a few times of staying in Dallas for the next five months and likely for the next few years, instead of going overseas. After talking to my mom and friends, and praying and thinking about the jobs that I have had over the past three weeks, I decided to quit all of them and focus solely on finding something that I feel is better suited for me than retail, hopefully some kind of job that I will enjoy, and maybe that will pay a little better than retail.
So, on Thursday I set out to apply for jobs online and to hand in my resume at a couple places in Dallas. For some reason I find job searching online and writing cover letters and all of that to be very tiring and usually a lot of work with no results, and it has been made even more difficult because my laptop does not function as a laptop and usually just does not work at all, frustrating and inconvenient.

Last week after spending some time trying to use my computer, I was writing in my prayer journal, and asked the Lord to provide a laptop for me, I didn’t know how or by whom, but tried to have faith that God could and would provide for me. After finishing with my applications, resumes and cover letters for the day I was ready to go apply for several bilingual/ESL teaching assistant positions and schools in Dallas. I did not know if anything would come of it, but I was just praying for at least a phone call or an interview. My dad had texted me a little earlier in the day asking me to call him, so before I headed over to the school office I called him. He said he had been on the phone with my grandma and she was going to give me money to buy a computer! I was amazed and so thankful, God is good, His plan is perfect and He always takes care of His children.

I went on to the school office handed in the resumes and early the next morning got a phone call from the principal of one of the elementary schools, that is only a few miles away from my apartment. The elementary school my mom had been telling me about for at least the past week. The principal asked if I could come in for an interview that afternoon, which of course I did. She said she was a Baylor graduate as well, and a political science major, something that hopefully will work to my advantage. I thought the interview went well, and she said she’d be back in contact with me in a couple days. I don’t know if I’m going to end up getting the job or not, but either way, I know it will be ok, either way, it won’t be perfect, but God will take care of me and everything will work out.

An answered prayer in the form of a laptop was the perfect reminder that the Lord knows exactly what He is doing.

Overqualified or Under motivated

I woke up this morning to General Patton barking at something in the window, he’s my roommate’s puppy, maybe the cutest dog in the world, but also probably the yappiest. I crawled out of bed and thought to myself, I feel like my life is one of those chick flicks or inspirational feel good movies, “recent college graduate moves to big city in search of job, after some struggle, some bad luck, almost giving up, she finds great job at huge corporation, finds love, befriends old wise hermit neighbor, finds meaning in life, lives happily ever after.” ….except real life is not a chick flick or inspirational movie, and right now I’m kind of just stuck in the first thirty minutes of the movie and it keeps replaying over and over again.
Today is Monday, last Saturday I quit my job at Tecomax and on Sunday I went to training at Anthropologie. On Friday, my fifth day being an Anthro employee, I got hired at Pier 1 Imports. On Sunday I had an interview at DSW. As of this afternoon I have worked at seven different retail stores, being interviewed and asked all of the same questions and giving the same obvious answers is getting old. Do you think coming to work and being on time is important? Why do you want to work for us? What does customer service mean to you? Will you be able to get people to sign up for this program or that credit card or buy more of these products? Anyone with half a brain would correctly answer these questions…but then my problem is, I get the job and don’t WANT to do these things. I’m sorry, in the grand scheme of things I honestly don’t care if we make $33,000 today instead of $38,000. After working jobs that I actually did care about and felt passionate about, with friends I loved, retail just doesn’t cut it.
Being trained to greet customers, smile, and convince them to buy more is getting old. I can’t say, yeah, I’ve got this, this is my seventh retail job and I spent the past two summers working sixty hour weeks befriending hundreds of students and parents every day, oh and by the way I graduated from college. I’m thinking maybe overqualified means, you’re probably going to have a bad attitude and think you can run this store on your own. Yeah, I think I could do it, but I don’t want to!!! and I pray I don’t stick around long enough to find out.

Are you currently price protected?-Two days as a door to door saleswoman

I’m not sure if you ever look at the F my life website, but my very favorite posting was from a girl who said, “I’m about to graduate from a very prestigious university. In three days I start working at a hot dog stand.” That’s about how I was feeling on my first day working for Reliant Energy. But I knew I was not better than anyone else sitting in that training room, we were all in the same boat, trying to make a living, pay the bills, haha, all that stuff. The first person that I had contact with at Tecomax(when I got to the interview I realized it wasn’t actually working for Reliant, but for their marketing agency) seemed like a pretty genuine, intelligent, good guy, and he said I could likely move up very quickly, which sounded good to me and the job he was potentially offering sounded great.

Day one of training was pretty good. I listened to everything and took really good notes. The only thing that was bothering me at all was how much they kept talking about the money. I mean, that is what caught my attention, and the main reason I was still there. Then, on day two of training, the director guy of the office came in to give us a little pep talk and taught us how to be successful and the art of reading people. But what I got out of it was how to get people to think you agree with them when you really don’t and distract them into buying what you’re selling. Which, I do believe reliant really is a great deal, but I don’t exactly like the mind games.
I left training on day two excited for the next day. The whole time I had been praying about the job, cause the extreme emphasis on the money was starting to bother me quite a bit. When the people in charge were saying that the only reason they were doing their jobs was to make money I wasn’t ok with that. I do not want a job solely to make money. I want to have a job that makes a difference and helps people. But I was interested in what this whole door to door thing would be like, so I went for it.

The next day I went out and knocked on 50 doors and of course, what would happen? It started pouring down rain! I got completely soaked! Looked like I had jumped in a pool kind of soaked. And I didn’t get anyone to switch to Reliant, but it ended up being a pretty rough day for everyone so I didn’t feel very bad. And I thought to myself, how much worse can it get I just walked around in the rain and in the dark for hours. I woke up the next morning and saw it was supposed to rain for the next five days….Day two didn’t go too well, it rained again, and mostly I just didn’t really enjoy the people I was working for. But thank the Lord, seriously, after MUCH prayer, at the end of the day an extremely nice couple with a beautiful little baby and german shepherds switched without a fight! I was relieved and felt successful, but not successful enough. I went in the next morning for an energetic peppy breakfast with the team at Denny’s and then I quit! Oh what a wonderful feeling, and one of the wiser decisions I’ve made in my life.

The wonderful world of retail

I'm just writing a short little blog mostly out of frustration, but don't worry I'll post another one soon that will be more upbeat and hopefully entertaining. It's 11:32 right now and I'm about to go for training at Pier 1 Imports. I should be excited about this right? or should I? This will be the third "job training" session I will be going to in the past two weeks...yes, this is my third job in two weeks. I will learn how to smile and say, "Hi, how are you doing today? What can I help you with?" I'll learn all about loss prevention and customer service and running stock and how to sign people up for credit cards, there will be lots of paper work Seriously...I don't know how people work retail on a regular basis, cause I feel like it is quickly killing my soul.(Maybe I'm a little dramatic.) I'm sitting at Panera right now, I've been searching for jobs online for the past two hours. This has become a routine the past couple weeks, search and search and seach, apply.....wait for a response....nothing. BUT when it comes to retail, apply, get called back, get hired immediately. I kind of feel like God is playing a joke on me, but I'm not finding it very funny. Oh, and I just realized I left my social security card at home, so now I have to run home get that and be late to my first day at Pier 1. perfect, haha.

The Search Begins

On September 1st I moved in to an apartment in Dallas with Dana, one of my friends from Baylor, and I was so excited. When I got to the leasing office on Sept. 1st the lady at the office was like, oh...you wanted to move in today?? but after a couple hours of filling out paper work and signing a million papers she handed over our apartment keys and we were good to go.

In the midst of moving in to my apartment, I've been desperately trying to find a job. Up until about two months ago I was not planning on moving to Dallas, I was not even planning on staying in the country. I really wanted to go back to Africa or anywhere else in the world. But after much prayer and consideration I decided to stay in the area a little longer and try to go to nursing school. I've been interested in medicine my whole life, so why not go ahead and do it? I started with craigslist and applied for seven or eight jobs that I was definitely qualified for, but didnt hear a single word from anything...which brings me to the conclusion that craigslist must be fake. What comes after craigslist???? retail jobs at the mall....I have worked my fair share of retail jobs, some good, some not so good. But I have said many a time, I hope I never have to go back to retail again. I had an interview at Anthropologie, a trendy, really fun store at the mall, and still left the store thinking, gosh I dont want to work there.

Thursday afternoon my friend Elizabeth and I were of course, looking and applying for jobs online, which I am still convinced are all fake, when I decided to look through the sunday newspaper lying on the dining room table. I found one little tiny listing for Reliant Energy, no job description at all, but I called and went in for an interview the next morning. The one thing I kept thinking to myself was, please don't let it be door to door sales. Jose, who I had spoken to on the phone did not inform me that there were going to be fifteen other people there at the same time, all to be interviewed. After sitting through the whole orientation shpeal and figuring out that yes, this was basically door to door sales, it was time for the one on one interview. the orientation shpeal did bring up the money side of the job which did sound quite good. After talking to jeremy, the recruiter I decided, why not, this will be yet another adventure. Now I can add door to door saleswoman to my long list of random jobs. Who know's maybe I'll love it, hopefully I'll be good at it, but if not, I'll know by friday.