Joe Job

So at the moment, I'm unemployed. At first it was a kind of planned unemployment, I was coming off a tour, had some money in my bank account. I intended to luxuriate in my free time, not staying in hotel rooms, not eating Tim Horton's food in the truck, and just relax for about a month. Because I have some mad office skillz, you see, so I figured it would be pretty easy to pick up some office work when I was good and ready.

Not so much, apparently.

You see, contrary to popular beliefs, most actor/writer/artist types aren't raking in the cash from government grants, we don't get paid tons of money even when we are working. We tend to live by picking up little freelance gigs piecemeal, by waiting tables, by typing memos for people and answering their phone. Hence, the Joe Job. The "Real Job" if you're feeling a little less kind.

I've had a lot of joe jobs, mostly in offices. I may be one of the only actors in the world who has never waited tables or worked in food service. Because I somehow got sucked into working in offices right after university, and I highly recommend temping to anyone who asks. No responsibility, a finite time limit that you'll be expected to be there, and people are always impressed when you know the alphabet. The way it works is pretty simple. You sign up with a temp agency. Then someone at the agency, your temp pimp as it were, sends you out on jobs. You show up, do some kind of menial work, and collect a paycheck. Easy peasy!

But not anymore. I went back to my temp agency, and my temp pimp was super excited about it, and I have worked for exactly 5 days in the past month. Things have gotten slow here in oil country. So slow that it's getting hard to get any kind of job. Jobs at malls, fast food jobs, everyone is taking anything they can, because suddenly it's looking pretty bleak.

So where does this leave me? I'd planned to get a second job to pay off some debt and some upcoming wedding debt, even though the prospect of working 7 days a week wasn't exactly thrilling. But right now I'd be happy with any income. Being a supermarket checkout girl, pouring coffee, flipping burgers. And yet, I have also been rejected by all these jobs. Because even though a ton of office jobs look impressive on the resume, people assume that I have no other skills, or they just don't believe I actually want to scoop ice cream for a living.

Actually, scooping ice cream or working at Value Village sound a lot better to me than going to office potlucks, but that could just be me.

In other news, I have been accomplishing some things. Writing some online content articles that are actually going to give me a paycheck this month. Taking the second half of that film class in a couple of weeks. Submitting plays to places. Doing some freelance-y little things. So I can't say that I don't enjoy being my own boss and having free time. I just can't help feeling more and more anxious about my dwindling finances.