It details the job I got at Loopy Yarns and my pre-training feelings. I've been at the job for three working days now and I absolutely love it. We take time off, sometimes, to just relax and knit. I have brilliant coworkers and OH MY GOODNESS YARN LUST. We just got our shipment of Fleece Artist and I spent a good portion of Saturday coveting the kid silk. Yum! And the Baby Alpaca Grande. I want to make a thousand treasures out of it. I will never walk out of there with any money at all!
Anyway, before I get on with the journal, a Operation Modest Bow Update: No word. Sad. Quite, quite sad.
I’ve encountered a tiny problem: living is expensive. Living a life of luxury (diner coffee, 100% wool, high speed internet) is even more expensive. So, I’ve been looking for jobs since coming to DePaul. When I found out that a favorite café was hiring, I leapt on the prospect. Two weeks later: an interview. Two weeks later still, after I’d given up: training! So, I was feeling quite positive about the entire thing. And then I found out that my boss was just about as scatterbrained as they come. He leaves me after roughly two hours of training to fend for myself. We have no clock-in system or even a posted schedule. My Crazy Boss comes and goes as he pleases, since he is the boss. So, after hounding him with multiple calls and messages to finally tell me when he wanted me to come into work, he told me to come in for a Saturday. Off he toddled with my ID and Social Security card. I started to worry. He left me, again, two hours into my shift, to fend for myself in the swamp of customers. Tips were meager. Another week went by and just this past Friday, I got a call, expecting it to be My Crazy Boss, offering me hours and some sort of consolation. Even better.
It was Vicki, the owner of Loopy Yarns. Right there, on the spot, she asked me if I wanted a job and when could I come in for training. A job! At a yarn shop where there are discounts and trade field trips. Be still my beating heart! You can only imagine my elation. So, we set up a day for training: Thursday at noon. I imagine she’ll show me the ropes and teach me to use the computer system (and ball winder! Yes!) and it will be utterly marvelous. “We’re really laid back here.” Unlike My Crazy Boss who insists on making everything unnecessarily stressful. That or he’s been smoking something funny from the hookahs (we serve flavored tobaccos after 6PM, but no illicit substances).
So, I began to worry about balancing these two jobs. Those worries were entirely banished when I received a phone call from My Other Crazy Boss (the café owner’s brother) with my schedule. 11AM to 5PM several days a week. My brow knit, I frowned. Days? I’d listed my availability as nights and weekends. I spoke to him about this and he sounded downright angry when I told him I wouldn’t have any free weekdays next term. He started to tell me how important it was that I work days, as though my inability to do so was my fault.
My choice became quite clear: ditch the confusion of the café, take on as many hours at the yarn shop as I possibly could over Christmas break and start looking for another night job, in case I can’t work enough days at the yarn shop next term. So, with that worry gone, I can now start biting my nails and fretting about starting a new job. And for the very, very first time in my life, I’m looking at a job that I know I will actually like. Like any other young person with a bit of work ethic and empty bank account to rub together, I’ve had a handful of after school jobs (Retail Queen at a Catholic book/supply/gift shop, amateur florist). These were just jobs. As I think about Loopy Yarns, however, I see something more than a job; I see something I’m genuinely interested in. Vicki wants me to help out with teaching a few people that straggle in. She mentioned as much when I first went into the shop. That’s something I’m not half bad at, and what’s more, it’s something I really enjoy doing. I’m going to be surrounded by yarn and knitters! I personally think that this is entirely brilliant.
Knitting has saved the day! Knitting may also be doing something more. I’ve been thinking about this lately—I don’t smoke when I’m going to be handling yarns, as a rule. All my coworkers at the café smoke and we serve tobacco. I’m weighing the two jobs, and thinking that maybe this yarn shop job will help me kick a nasty habit. Knitting saves the day once more, perhaps. I’ve never been the type of knitter that saw knitting as a healing activity—I’ve too much stress for it to zap that much, plus, I prefer complex patterns. I don’t pray or meditate or any of that, so knitting has never helped me channel either of those forms of mediation. Knitting has always just been a hobby. Perhaps now it will be something more. I’ll kick smoking before work and while on break. I can only imagine that the rest will follow.
I think, overall, this job will be good for me. At the very least, it will be some money in my pockets. More than that, though, it will bring me closer to something I love. It will certainly prevent me from letting my knitting be forgotten for other hobbies when this class ends (I’ve always been a flighty knitter, which I’m sure is no surprise at all. I’ll pick it up with boundless enthusiasm and chug through until that enthusiasm fails me). I think this job will fully entrench the knitter into my body and soul and I shall henceforth never be without project. I’ll leave behind the occasional needle clicking of a hobby knitter and pick up the endless needle chatter of a lifestyle knitter. And that’s pretty darn cool, I think. I see it happening. Of course, I could be very wrong, but cynicism is easily refuted with a few good days at a new job and a little plastic name tag with my very own name on it.
Despite all the excitement over this new job, I’m absolutely terrified. I know I have what it takes and that if I’m not perfectly qualified at this moment, I’ll pick things up quickly. I know I’ll be doing something I love—and perhaps that’s why I worry. I’ve loved past jobs because of wonderful coworkers, but now I’ve been offered a job that does have more perks than just a good set of coworkers.
I must not look at it as something I can lose, something to be prized that can be easily taken away. I must look at it as an adventure. And I do love adventures something fierce.
Anyway, I'm currently working on a baby afghan, and it's far too big for the circs I'm using. I could break down and buy an addi Turbo #8 32" circ, but I haven't the money.
I want addi to make an interchangeable set. They would sell like hotcakes! So many knitters swear by addi needles but so many knitters like the convenience of an interchangeables kit. That would delight me immensely. Hopefully they will in the near future, but I haven't heard word of it. I don't like the Denises (clumsy, in my opinion, and I don't like the joint), but the Knit Picks Options set doesn't seem to have enough cable sizes! I can't find a 16" anywhere! How sad! It comes with two each of 24" and 32" cables, but nothing smaller than a 24"! I want a 16", damn it all! Sometimes I want to make hats on circs and not dpns, and a nice interchangeable set would make me quite merry. Perhaps I ask for too much.
Alas.
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