what's in a job?

And so the days of our lives continue. This past week we’ve had to fire our guard for, well, not guarding. Granted he was the night guard and granted he brought a bed so we should’ve known his intention was to sleep but he would be out cold! When we came to the gate and honked at 10 p.m., he didn’t make it outta bed. And it happened more than once. It’s one thing to not open the gate and another entirely if he slept through someone breaking into the compound. Which seemed probable. So he got the boot.

For the four months I’ve been here, I’ve been wishin and hopin for a job while at the same time not entirely excited about the actual pounding of the foreign pavement. So I kept wishin and hopin. And suddenly I have a job. It happened through the connection we made when we ordered our furniture from ‘the stoner guy’ whose name is actually Daniel. And he’s dynamic beyond the stoner factor – very intelligent, business savvy and all that. He’s off to the US to do some promotion work for a side project and needs a manager for the furniture store in his absence. T and I happened to stop in while this was evidently plaguing his brain and I was offered as a somewhat temporary solution. The next day I brought in my resume (they said I was ‘overqualified’ something I’ve never heard in my life and will probably never hear again. In actual fact, I’m unsure of how to manage a retail store but regardless, it’s a job) and we agreed on a salary in birr. I’m trying not to do the math of how many hours I’ll be putting in and how much that will be in dollars because it’ll induce wincing. Daniel did offer me “a bonus to restructure the company” (again, not sure how exactly that’s done but I’m sure I’ll have some ideas anyways). While I’m not terribly excited about the learning curve for this particular position, I am intrigued to be around the ‘can do’ energy of Daniel and his brother (the general manager). As an added bonus, maybe we can finally get those side tables we’ve been waiting on.