I'm the only one in my family with a fulltime job. My dad recently left his finance gig; he was a trader, and In This Economy, he was showing up at work just to lose money. My mom works three afternoons a week at a preschool (rough life, right?). You'd think I’d have mornings to myself to take baths, make strong coffee and drink it straight from the pot, and use the good bathroom with the expensive shampoo. But my dad's inner time clock hasn’t adjusted. He’s up at the crack of dawn, and he’s not doing things like making me ooozing cheesy omelets for breakfast, offering to help me put together an awesome work outfit, or assisting me in curling my hair. Instead he sits at the counter, drinking the severely weak coffee he brews, scowling, and complaining about his boredom and his lack of funds.
Being the primary breadwinner in the house is beyond scary. How is a 23-year-old with a job that barely brings home moldy bread supposed to bring home the bacon too? I’m eager to help my pops find a new job that fills his wallet with twenties I can once again “borrow” from time to time without him noticing.
You have to understand, my father is the cheapest man alive. The other day, I needed to mail six letters, and my dad was groaning and visually distressed as he watched me affix these 44 cent stickers to the envelopes. When he suggested I send the letters by owl, I knew it was time to get his resume on CareerBuilder or encourage him to start pushing sandwiches at the local Jimmy John’s. It’s overwhelming enough to try to find myself a job; it's even tougher being my dad’s career counselor.
My dad has no clue what to do. He’s thinking about valeting cars. He dreams of being a mailman, or loading up grocery carts at Costco. He just wants to do something, anything, so he’s not completely bored and constantly worrying about stamp price inflation. This is hard for me to grasp—here I am searching for a real job, and my dad is trying to get away from his real job, the job he’s had since before my conception.
It’s sort of funny to watch your father go through a midlife crisis when you’re going through a quarter-life crisis yourself. You ask yourself what you want, and then the guy who’s supposed to take care of you is asking you what he should do. I don’t know what to tell him. Even though we’re searching for different jobs, we’re looking for the same thing—something we can do, something that we wake up for, and something that brings home whole wheat bread for the sandwiches we want to bring to lunch each day.
Now I am turning to you Sparklers. If you’d like to hire my dad, let me know about any potential openings below. My dad has a variety of skills, including calling at inopportune moments and begging for back scratches. Also, he wakes up really early, even when he has no job, just to irritate me, so I'm sure he'll always be on time. We live in Chicago, but I’d be happy to ship him off to any state. Relocation is not a problem; it’s actually a preference. Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Topics: Life
Tags: jobs, annoying things, the diary of ashley spencer, dads
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