My Last Day

I am currently one hour away from no longer being a YMCA employee.

The past three weeks, having to get up and be out of the house by 5 am, working at the Y, then working at QDx, then going to Miracle Worker rehearsals and not getting home until 10:30 or 11 pm have been absolutely grueling. But I think these past three mornings have been the hardest. Somehow, knowing it was my last week here made it even more tempting to stay in bed (I mean, what could they do if I didn't show up? Fire me?). But it is such a wonderful feeling to know that I have a regular schedule, and to know that I never have to work another weekend shift or have to give up going out with friends because I have to get up early the next day ever again!

I will miss my boss and my supervisor at the Y, because they really are great. I'll also miss the people I work with. And I'll really miss the free gym membership. What I really won't miss (aside from the early mornings and the weekends) are the members (with a few exceptions). These people here just have this huge sense of entitlement. They're never satisfied.

On Monday, we opened up the probably million dollar expansion to the Y that has been in construction for over a year, and all people can do is complain about it. It has a new weight room with brand new equipment, a room for the spin classes with new bikes and a new stereo and speaker system, and some new offices and such. So now that all of the weights are moved out into this new room, the room that had everything in it before is now all cardio, so there was more room to add new machines. And we accomplished all of this by only increasing the prices of two or three membership categories by no more than $2 a month. But this still isn't good enough for some people.

Apparently, some people were under the impression that they were getting a second set of locker rooms and a second pool in the expansion. Also, the people who regularly take the spin classes are used to it being in one of the multipurpose rooms, where they have to move the bikes out from the wall to set up for the class and then put the bikes back when the class is done. Now that we have a cycling room they don't have to do that anymore, but they're complaining that the room is too small (because its not the size of a basketball court like the multipurpose room is). They're also pissed off because now that the room is smaller, they can't chit-chat during the classes, because now everyone in the room, including the instructor can hear them. One man actually came up to me and told me that since the middle of January (when we changed our opening time from 5 am to 5:30 am), all we had accomplished was pissing people off, and that we were going to lose hundreds of memberships.

Seriously, all these people do is complain. I'm so glad that I am leaving now, because it's gotten to the point where if I had to be here any longer, I would get fired for telling people where they can shove their complaints.

But Wait, What About Acting?

For now, I have decided several things about being a professional actress:

1. It's a lot different as an adult than as a kid
• When Mom and Dad aren't footing the bills for travel to and from the city, it gets really expensive really fast.
• When I was a kid, the money I got from booking jobs was put towards my car and clothes and college stuff. I didn't need it. As an adult, I was depending on booking those jobs for any source of income.
2. It is very hard to do without an agent. 
• Getting an agent is just as hard as everyone says it is. Even agents that I already worked with as a kid.
• You can't get an audition for TV and film without an agent.
• Equity open calls are more often than not a huge waste of time and money.
3. I am considered very overweight for my character type and the overall look that. The industry is mostly based on looks, not talent.
4. Even getting an agent and booking a job doesn't mean that it will happen again. 

So, with all of that said, I was tired of constantly being broke, having to work early mornings and weekends and not being able to see my friends who worked normal schedules, spending most of my weekdays sitting around doing nothing, and not being able to do community theater shows that I really wanted to do and with people I wanted to do shows with. It just wasn't worth it, and I didn't feel the same way about it as I did when I was younger. I decided that to me, it was more important for AJ and I to be able to live comfortably, and for acting to go back to being something that I enjoyed doing (and got to do at all).

Since December I've been in rehearsals for The Miracle Worker (we open this Friday) and then I'm starting rehearsals this month for Olympus on my Mind, which I'm not only doing with AJ, but with a cast that includes some of our best friends.  And because I'm not just sitting around bored all day and eating, I've lost weight. And people have noticed. With the prospect of a career and steady, decent paychecks, thinking about the future isn't stressful. Things like having a wedding and buying a house and having kids don't seem so unrealistic.

And these past few months, I've been happy. Unbelievably happy. That's how I know I've made the right decision; I haven't once regretted it. 

My First Grown-Up Job

It's official. I have joined the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 working world.

After months of looking and the help of a staffing agency, I have a job working as the administrative assistant to the director of operations at a pathology lab. Today starts my third week here (my first as an official employee and not a temp), and I really like it. It is a little nerve wracking sometimes, because I'm still very new at this and don't always know what I'm doing or how to do it, but my boss is really great. Her boss can be a bit of a jerk, but I think he's warming up to me. I love having my own desk. I know where everything is, it's all organized the way I want it to be, and I even have pictures of me and AJ on it.

The lab is very busy, and it can get a little overwhelming at times. But then there are days like today, where my boss is traveling and I have no projects of my own to work on, so I'm really only here to take messages for her and distribute the mail. So I guess those days even out the crazy ones. The first two weeks were a lot of back and forth days of "I really love this job! This is going to be great!" and "Oh my God I don't think I can handle this. Maybe this is too much for my first job. Maybe I should start in a less intense office setting." But, I'm trying really hard to just remind myself that I was this nervous when I started working at the Y and didn't know what I was doing too. I also try to keep reminding myself that when she hired me, my boss said that she really wanted to hire someone to start out as her assistant and then eventually train them to be the associate director of operations, and then maybe even take over for her. So this is not just a job. This could be a career and a future.

So, I'll just keep taking deep breaths, and see what the future has in store for me here!