Queen of Odd Jobs

Unfortunately, like most authors, I can't pay my bills on my book sales. (Yet. YET!) This means that I have a day job ... or several?

As it happens, I've become the Queen of Odd Jobs. Every time I think I can list them all, it turns out I find another one peeking its head up and requiring attention. So let's try to list them now.

1. Writing

   This one is my number one, and has been since I was a teenager. I don't always devote the time to it that I should, but it's the one I care about most. And with my new challenge this year, I've been consistently carving out time to do it, so there's hope for me yet.
   

2. Retail

   It'd be fair to assume that this is my primary job. I've worked retail since I was eighteen. I started at the local hardware and grocery store at the same time. At that time, I was full time at the hardware and part time at the grocery. Over the years, I went to the grocery store less and gained more long hours at the hardware. At last, in 2019, I quit the hardware. (Had full intentions on going somewhere else and being something else in the spring. But y'know what happened in the spring of 2020? YEAH. That didn't happen.) During the oh-so-fun pandemic, the grocery needed more people, since everyone from downstate decided to "shelter in place" in old family cabins long forgotten. (Damn, 2020 was a good year for business!) Now, my primary job is at the grocery store. That doesn't mean I dropped the other things I was doing, or didn't pick up more.
   

3. Card Merchandiser

   This is the easiest of all the jobs, and the most annoying. I took this one when we switched greeting card companies because they needed someone local to stock the cards and order new ones. I only have to do the job about five times a year, changing them all out per holidays. I only have to order about twice a year, and that's usually when I need holiday specific cards. All of which is really easy, except when the company randomly decides some things should be on autoship. Pissed me right off when I finally found out how to stop it. The thing about this company is that we are out of contract with them, so now it's more like a year by year basis. Which means, if I have issues with them, they'll have issues keeping this location. Therefore, everyone plays nice and doesn't bother each other. I still hate it. But even if someone else takes over, I'm the point of contact for that location. Therefore, it would be me signing off on orders and returns. So why have a middle man?
   

4. Developmental Editor

   This is the most fun job I have. It's project-specific and I'm a cheap date, but getting to read a story, pick apart all of the things that don't make sense, or hype up certain scenes, and figure out where characters are lacking... It's a great job. Realistically, I only really do DE work for one particular author. (If you can't guess at this point, shame on you.) That said, I've done enough DEs that I could easily add it to my resume if the need ever arose.
   

5. Storage Unit Manager This is a newish one. I picked up this gig from my BILs, as it was getting too difficult to train new office hires on the empire plus these 'side quests'. Therefore, I picked up the side quests. So far, this one is the most and least time-consuming. What I mean by that is: I have a work cell phone. Even though the posted office hours are 8am - 4pm Mon-Fri, the reality is more like: sporadic phone calls at all hours throughout the entire week. Sometimes I'm able to take those calls when at the other job. A lot of times, I can't. And even though Saturday is supposed to be my day off, it seems that the biggest crises happen then. Sunday, however, is a day of 'hard no.' Even though I technically work the evening shift at the grocery store then, it feels like the one day off I have.
   

6. Property Manager

   This is the newest and the one I feel like I'm failing the most at. I'm still learning it, but not being able to fill the empty units is really starting to weigh on me. Which means I might finally hone some of my marketing chops. So whatever skills I pick up in the process of trying to fill the empty units, that's another skill to put against the writing. Wish me luck!

And that's it. I think. For now, anyway, that's totally it.

Which means, I hope you can all see why this post is so late this week. My training has finally progressed in the management aspect of most of these, so I'm hoping to fall into a groove. Unfortunately, the days it did so were all on my 'days off' from Job 2. Since my manager took Free Fishing Weekend off, that means I don't have my normal Saturday off, either, and my Sunday went from evening to morning, with a store close tacked on.

In other words: it's been a long week, and it continues to be long. At least tomorrow's pay day. Now I will post this right before I go to bed. Have a fun weekend, everyone. (I mean it. Have fun for me. I've got too much work to do.)