Listen to the audiobook free on YouTube: Cognitive Friction Audiobook
What is slowing down my growth, my expansion, my job search?
I don’t think I’m suffering from friction, but I am frustrated by the process. Work work work. A day of rest and recuperation. Work work work. Apply. Apply. Interview. Apply. Work work work. Today, I don’t go to work until 1 pm. My schedule is not my own. It is written three weeks in advance. Then I try and remap my life around the peaks and valleys of the grocery life.
I am happy at my job, but making even my basic necessities with the pay. I keep getting ignored in my desire to craft a better role for myself. Today, nearly six months in, I’m still a basic cashier. I have a resume and skills that should demonstrate my abilities, yet, I get a rejection within 24 hours of the next-level role. I am being rejected out of hand. The team lead is just back from a two-week vacation. He’s not having any of my aspirations. Nope. No need to discuss. That’s the way. Ignore. Reject. Move along.
As a basic cashier my value to the company is limited. I can be and will be replaced at any time. I have approached one of my store leaders about a mentor relationship. He seemed genuinely interested. I went into the HR system and requested the connection. I was rejected. He already has a mentee. I spoke to him the next day. “You can only have one mentee at a time.” He laughed and said I could submit it again in a few weeks. That’s how everything goes. No one is going to do anything they don’t have to. The team lead saw my application as a nuisance.
In some ways, I am a nuisance. Just a cashier. A cog. I could be the best cog in the system, with ideas to improve the coffee bar, merchandising mix, and flow of workers within the customer service department. But I’m just a cashier. Limited value.
I’m seeing this as a motivational thing. Up and out. I cannot rest on my 40-hour job. It’s not sustainable. I’m starting to burn into savings, to damage my credit, to feel exhausted before I even get to work. I love the people part of the work. I like most of my colleagues, a few of the leaders, and am enthralled by the river of beautiful people seeking healthy food and plant magic. Have you noticed mushrooms making a big comeback in the superfood category? Lion’s Mane is being added to everything. Between that and turmeric/ginger health shots, I should live forever. The whole foods aspiration: long life.
I’m here for that. I appreciate the hippie approach to groceries and wellness, even if we’re now controlled by one of our space rocket billionaires with a plastique wife. Gross. But the store was created by a visionary man, John Mackie. Often, I am called John Mac, so we share that. He might have sold his soul when he took the massive offer from the bald Lex Luther, but his heart is still in the right place. He’s got a new venture: Love. Health. Wellness. Something like that. It’s taking the grocery store as a health and wellness mecca to the next level. Imagine getting acupuncture and yoga exercises upstairs and coming down for a healthy meal. Then you are able to buy all the fruit and veggies to cook the healthy recipes for yourself.
I don’t want to live forever. I do like the idea of living to the limits of my healthy lifespan. It is going down in the United States. We are healthcare adverse. The insurance industry and medical malestrom have been keeping most Americans from getting the care they need. It’s a for-profit industry. And the insurance companies sit in the middle, providing little more than oversight and billing. We’re the last developed nation that doesn’t provide universal healthcare. So, today, I struggle at my job: for the benefits. The beautiful people too, but that’s a distraction from the rising temperature of the water I swim in. I’m about to be boiled alive from the lack of agency.
This job was designed to contain and control young people entering the workforce for the first time. We are treated like children with a military hierarchy of baffoons above. In this system, I am a private. If I am fortunate enough to inspire my team lead, I might get the next level-up, as a supervisor, for an extra buck fifty an hour. Why bother?
I do love the people watching and conversations. I wrote a book of my experience, The Happy Cashier. I think my work here is done, but I’ll continue plodding along, gaining confidence and slowing the burn of my nest egg. I am doing my best this morning not to get too optimistic about my interview yesterday. It could unlock a lot of goodness in my life to get this job. And there’s a twist.
My grandfather and father were both physicians in Austin, Texas. The role is for the Texas Medical Association. I liked the three women I interviewed with. I got a good vibe. They asked great questions and I had great answers. We smiled a lot. There’s no telling. The job market is even worse than the healthcare marketplace. It is all being crushed by an administration acting like a king with subjects. We are, the people are, fighting back. The lawsuits are flying. Why are we fighting so hard against a man who is trying to destroy life as we know it in America? And how is 35% of our population in favor of the takeover? I suppose they are part of the group that stands to gain from his laissez-faire, money-first approach.
I’m on the other side. Trying to make ends meet with the opportunities I have. Hundreds of job applications with no response. Or “we regret to inform you,” and “good luck in your search.” Most of them never reply.
I use AI to rewrite the cover letters and position my resume for success. They use AI to screen out all but the ideal candidate. I have not solved the rubric. Of course, my grey hair gives away another aspect of hiring me that may be limiting my search. For years I dyed my hair brown. It was unnatural. Fake. Like most people on television. During the modern plague I was living with a hippie who loved my grey. She asked me to let it go natural. I did. I am. I am not really considering darkening my hair again, but I did get a short and non-hippie haircut for my zoom call interview yesterday.
Today, I am happy, optimistic, and awake. The coffee tastes good. I’m going to call and checkin with my friend John in a few minutes. And in a few hours I’ll be back at the store asking customers, “Did you find everything you were looking for?”
The most common response is, “And then some.” We smile. Sometimes there is a meaningful conversation. Sometimes they are distracted, talking on the phone, or ignoring me. I am a machine to them. I am a ghost. Invisible. Sometimes, my gray hair seems to have that affect as well. One woman I tried to date over ten years ago, said, “You remind me of my father.” She’s still dying her hair dark brown. She’s still got no relationship to show. I asked her about it a few times. “Any interesting relationship adventures?” “Nothing of great importance,” she replied. Perhaps that meant it was of no importance to me, since I was never going to be under consideration. Or, more likely, she was not dating and not really looking for a partner. Perhaps I wasn’t the right gender. No judgment. Seems more likely that she’s just alone.
I am alone as well. At the moment, by choice. I’d rather have a new job. I’d rather write a new chapter. Dating is kind of gross. Meeting at a dark and obscure bar for drinks… Well, that’s not my modus operandi. It makes me drunk. Stupid. Aspring to the wrong kind of woman for the wrong kind of attention. The only “date” I’ve been on in six months was a few nights ago. She wasn’t divorced yet. She smoked. She smelled like heaven and smiled or giggled at my jokes. “I’ll have another drink,” she said.
Seventy-five dollars later, I drove home somewhat suspect and paranoid. Alcohol is deadly.
I sent her a text thanking her for the evening and talking about going to the swimming hole sometime. I won’t follow up. I could see myself falling into a dark tryst. Not what I need. As they say in medical terminology, contraindicated. Still, her intelligence and sad eyes were a bit mesmerizing. It could’ve been the Halloween decorations and terrible jukebox, but it was probably the tequila.
Onward. This morning is just starting to wake up. It’s still dark outside, but the sky in the distance is beginning to lighten. I’m pleasantly rising from the coffee’s jolt. Today it tastes good. I can always tell when my chemistry is off, when coffee tastes bad. When there’s no inspiration from coffee, there’s limited inspiration for the day. I might go back to sleep for a few hours. Not today.
I’ll repack my pride and gird my loins for another eight-hour shift on my feet. It’s nobody’s fault but mine. Also, not my fault. The manager at my high-powered marketing job was insecure and worried about me overshadowing his incompetence. It was happening. He fired me incorrectly. Then paid me indirectly with a new car, as a settlement. Let’s keep a watch out for those snares at my next job. I prefer woman bosses. When we see eye to eye, they are less likely to feel threatened by my innovative ideas.
Yeah, about those…
