Sunday, April 29, 2007

No Swearing in the Workplace

My job mainly consists of calling many different money transfer companies all over the world in order to put together a report about product offerings for the client. Well, the other day I'm calling an agent of a company in the UK that deals with sending money to East Africa to confirm their location; I ask what the name of the store is and he replies, "Al Karat". After I hang up, I ask my Moroccan co-worker what Al Karat means in Arabic and she laughs, "It's a bad word. It's the plural of shit." This guy cursed me off and I didn't even know it!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

About Nothing in Particular

Wow, it's been a while since I've written. Every time I tried to remind myself to write in my blog, I was always pushed back by the thought of not knowing where to start. So here it goes.

Shortly after I got back to the States I began my job search though websites like Career Builder and Monster.com. I soon discovered that many if not most of the applicable jobs that were listed were scams operating on pyramid schemes where the more people you recruit to work for you the more money you made. So, I decided to try my luck with some temp agencies. I worked as a pharmacy technician (fancy name for the person who puts pills in blister packs), as an assistant to a loan officer at JP Morgan, and also as a fact checker at a market research company. I ended up getting a full time job at the latter as a project manager.

The job has pretty much taken up most of my time since I started late January. There are ups and downs but I'm fairly content with where I am as of now. I can't say I love the work I'm doing but I do enjoy working with my co-workers which I've heard is probably more important that anything. I will post more work update in the future since it is what comprises most of my life.

I've lived at home for about 4 months now which is longer than I had previously though capable of doing. Two weeks was my record in the past. Initially I wanted to stay for a couple of years to help my family out with financial matters. After moving in, I changed that figure to a year and after these 4 months I'm not sure I can make it to even half a year. So my search goes on to find decent housing in NYC. I searched on Craigslist and found a few apartments that I went to check out one Sunday afternoon. The first appointment was a no show. The next one was a 100 sq. ft. studio in Midtown to share with this gay dude for $650; The room was semi divided with space for a small bed and a dresser. I basically got a corner of a room. The next was another studio on the west side to share with a "non-matriculated" student. It was a bit bigger and had a nice view of the Hudson but I still didn't think that it warranted the $800 rent. Then, I went to see a place to share with a room of my own in the Upper East Side. That was $1,200 for a tiny room with space to put a little desk. So this is what you get for that amount of money in NYC. I almost considered the $650 because it was the cheapest but I didn't go for it. All of them were nicely furnished. Living in NYC for at least a little while is just something I've always wanted to do so the search continues. If you know of anyone looking for a roommate, please contact me.