I Once Was Blind

This could only happen to me. And to some other people.

My last pair of glasses hasn’t been great. I didn’t really notice how tight the frames were when I bought them two years ago, and there’s not really any way to bend them into a more comfortable shape. They are too tight at the temples, and I can’t do anything about it.

This gives me the occasional headache, and more devastatingly, it makes my sideburns look funny. I’m pretty sure this is why I don’t currently have a girlfriend.

Anyway, it was time to get new glasses. My normal doctor had moved, and so I tried out a new one. His office was next to the discount bread store, and so, I’d seen it for years. If he’d been in business so long, I figured, he must be good.

He may be good as a doctor, I guess. Other things were lacking.

I got in to see him an hour-and-a-half after my appointment was scheduled. The waiting room had one four-month-old Sports Illustrated and ten Cosmopolitans, all in Spanish (I guess I could have looked at the pictures). I read every word the SI--twice.

Then, I got in there (no apologies for the wait), and it was a fairly normal eye appointment. In an attempt to make up for the long wait, I guess, the doctor promised me that they’d have the glasses themselves ready by closing time (which was less than an hour away).

I went back to the waiting room and waited. Fifteen minutes later, they had my glasses ready. This seemed odd (especially considering their lateness on everything else), but I was happy. I tried them on.

And I jumped. It was horrible. The glasses kept knocking me cross-eyed, and they distorted the shapes of things. When you walked, the floor seemed to be sinking away. I mentioned this to the lady who had given them to me (and who had put the lenses in), and she said that was normal and that in five or six hours everything would be normal.

Things never felt quite normal though. And yesterday, two days after getting the new glasses, I was complaining about them to Mom and Dad and was about to call the doctor’s office and try to get a refund. Before I did that, though, at a whim, I put my glasses on upside down. I could see.

They had switched the lenses. The left lens for the right eye and vice versa. I called up the doctor’s and they acted as though that was a normal thing. Just bring them in.

It’ll be several days until I can bet back to San Angelo. Until then, I’m going to have to walk around the house wearing my new glasses upside down. That’s better than messed-up sideburns at least.

Employed

Things did work out on the job front, it seems. I didn't get job number one after all (I was runner-up), but that's ok. As KM pointed out, the interview process told me a couple of things about them that I wasn't sure I was going to like anyway. I'm not broken-hearted.

Job #2 worked out in the end. It's going to be sort of a hybrid thing. I'll be half teacher, half librarian at a little high school south of Abilene. It should be a good spot for a little while. I'll probably write about the job a good bit more once it gets started. I think it'll be fine. I'm not quite sure where I'm going to be living yet.

But anyway, I just thought I'd let you know.

Ethics Suck Sometimes

I don’t like looking for jobs. The interviewing process is, for the most part, degrading. Most of the employers really seem to feel almost no obligation to treat the potential employees with dignity or courtesy. That’s how it’s been this summer on my job hunt, at least.

Recently, the job hunt has gotten me into a bit of a quandary. Last week, on Monday, I interviewed for two jobs. One is the job I’ve wanted since I applied for it in April. The employer (Employer #1), however, is notoriously slow at hiring, and the hiring committee had gone on a series of vacations, and they hadn’t gotten around to interviewing until mid-June. It’s the job I’ve wanted, though, tutoring disadvantaged college students. Since that interview was going to be so late coming, I had been applying for other jobs. After all, if I didn’t end up with the main job I wanted—which was the likelihood—that would be awfully late to wait in the summer to get a job. One of the other jobs I’d applied for (Employer #2) ended up with the interview on Monday also. So, I went to one and then to the other. The second job was not nearly as appealing as the other, though the people there seemed very nice.

As it happened, though, the second, less-appealing job, was offered to me on Tuesday, the day after the interview. I stalled on making a decision so that I could hear from Employer #1. Employer #2 gave me a week, which seemed like it would be fine since Employer #1 had said they would have their decision by Thursday or Friday. They didn’t have a decision, however, by Thursday or Friday. Instead, I got an email Sunday saying that I was one of their three finalists and that they were going to take another couple of weeks to make their final decision. Monday, I called Employer #1 and told them of my situation; they said they’d call me back on Tuesday. I called Employer #2 and asked for another day (which was granted). Then, Employer #1 called back (late on Monday) to say they might have a decision by Wednesday after all; they were speeding things up. So today, Tuesday, I called Employer #2 to ask for one more day to make a decision.

This really irritated Employer #2. If I wait until tomorrow, he more than implied, that position may be gone. If I don’t wait until tomorrow, I won’t get a shot at the job I really want.

I’m not angry at Employer #2. He needs to fill the spot, and it’s obvious I prefer the other job. I do wish that Employer #1 hadn’t taken more than two months to do anything on that position.

So why do ethics suck? Basically, there is an easy way out of my whole dilemma, and it’s the option most people have told me to take. That is, take the job offered by Employer #2, and if Employer #1 offers me the job, skip out on my contract. That’s what everybody does, I’ve been told multiple times. It makes sense. It is the only way I could make sure to have a job at the end of this ordeal and also have a shot at the job I want. I actually did something like it before, sort of, though it wasn’t a contract job (and I felt really horrible later). It doesn’t feel right, though, to commit myself to a job, only to turn it down soon thereafter. So I’m left with the choice of taking a job I’d rather not have (though it’s better than most) and giving up my chance at the job I want or continuing to stall and take a chance on not ending up with a job at all. I’m pretty sure that no matter how everything ends up, I’m not going to be happy about how things came about.

I guess I should have stayed in grad school.

Book Sale!

Every year, I go to the Abilene Public Library Book Sale if I can possibly make it. It's massive. The whole convention center is covered in them. This is about half a football field of cheap books. I've been looking forward to it all year.

The problem was that I've been in Menard, and I didn't have internet access all last week. So, I was having to remember when the sale was on. I thought that the last day of the sale was Monday, and so the best day to go to it would be Sunday, when the books were cheaper than the opening day and not yet totally picked over. It was convenient, too, that I had a job interview in Abilene Monday, and so I'd be coming up here on Sunday anyway.

So, I showed up today in Abilene, and I went down to the sale with my sister. When I walked in the door, it was obvious I had waited a day longer than intended. Today was the last day of the sale. The tables were pretty much empty (though really cheap). In despair, I grabbed a bag and rushed to the tables to see what I could salvage.

It was only after the sale was over and I had found a full bag of worthy books that I realized it hadn't been so bad. And I did save myself about $15-20 by showing up only on the last day.

Here's what I got (beginning with the books I'm most excited about). Let me know if you've read any:

1. Amazing Grace - Kathleen Norris
2. Hymn of the Universe - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
3. Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
4. Reaching Out - Henry J.M. Nouwen
5. My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
6. Fatelessness - Imre Kertesz
7. The Sea - John Banville
8. To Have and To Hold - Mary Johnston
9. A Life of Jesus - Shusako Endo
10. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
11. This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
13. A Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
14. The Vicar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith
15. The Shoes of the Fisherman - Morris West
16. Three by Annie Dillard - Annie Dillard
17. The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa
18. The Gentleman from San Francisco - Ivan Bunin
19. Shabanu - Suzanne Fisher Staples
20. Grendel - John Gardner
21. Goodbye, Mr. Chips - James Hilton
22. Strong Poison - Dorothy L. Sayers
23. Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy L. Sayers
24. The Book of the Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin
25. Shadow and Light - Stephen Weather, Darryl Tippens