I think I may have found a job that fits my current station in life. From Craigslist:
We are in need of 1 Sleep Tech Supervisor. You will be in charge of watching 3-5 people sleep a night, making sure all equipment is running properly and that our clients have no troubles.
This job is stress-free and requires little to no work. If you like working midnights and you like full benefits, then this is the job for you!! Your supervisor office will be equipped with a computer with full internet access along with a TV with cable, so that you’re not bored out of your mind.
Our packages include full health, dental, 401k, and paid vacation and holidays.
Hours are M-F 8 p.m – 6 a.m., every other friday off. Starting pay is $13.
Honestly, it beats what’s happening in the newspaper business especially these days. Not many stress-free jobs available in that racket.
Mine’s not bad, though, although it’s free of many other things — a decent salary, most obviously. A salary, period. But penury is a powerful goad, and I’ve actually been getting some work done. Oh, the joys of a home office. This afternoon I watched out the window while a flock of grackles descended on our little green acre and looted the place of edibles before moving on. The dog and I strolled out in it and considered the change in the light — distinctly autumnal, clearer, at a sharper angle in the afternoon. Watch it slip away, get all melancholy…and then come back inside to thoroughly enjoy the paper.
Well, “enjoy” probably isn’t the word for this story, about a hearing over a proposed Wal-Mart, although the objections raised weren’t the usual ones:
During public meetings in August where about 500 residents came out to hear plans for the store, several opponents of the project — which would replace retail areas at the old Wonderland Mall — repeatedly peppered the air with racially tinged comments. They include fears about black people from Detroit coming to Livonia to shop and work, and the suggestion that Livonia would become a ghetto.
Huh. In the fullness of time, I’ve come to prefer come-right-out-and-say-it racists to the speak-in-code-words racists. So there’s something to recommend Livonia’s Wal-Mart objectors, right there.
But I did enjoy this story, detailing “an influx of upscale prostitutes” to one of Detroit’s strolls. To me, an “upscale” prostitute is Jane Fonda in “Klute” — works on outcall only, keeps an appointment book, dresses nice. Not in Detroit:
The out-of-towners stand out from local prostitutes in big ways, law enforcement officials say: First, they dress glitzier, earning the nickname Hollywood hookers from some deputies. Second, they are less likely to be hooked on drugs. Law enforcement officials say addictions lead many local prostitutes to the streets. There’s a price difference, too: The out-of-state prostitutes charge more and can earn up to $1,000 a night. Local prostitutes sometimes earn just enough to get their next drug fix, Sutton said.
And these girls walk the streets with the $20 crack whores. I guess it’s all in the comparison, eh?
Maybe they should find work at sleep techs. The pay’s a little bit of a comedown, but the hours are comparable and you stay out of the bed. That’s gotta count for something.
jcb said on September 20, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Find me one of these positions in Atlanta!
Designer by day, pillower by night!
What a great idea.
jcb
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alex said on September 20, 2005 at 11:51 pm
We need more sleep techs in Fort Wayne. Plenty of cheap whores here, so that’s not the biz to break into. Today heard of two people close to me out of work soon with no prospects. A cousin’s training people in India to be computer programmers under penalty of being out the door right now if she doesn’t comply. Another friend works for a convention planner that lost its bread and butter contract and he’s gonna lose his house. A friend with AIDS is gonna get f–ked over by the new Medicaid plan, which will require seven grand he doesn’t have or lose his SS disability altogether–something Shrub doesn’t tell anybody with regard to the sinners who have AIDS. With any luck John McCain and company will get that pushed off for another year so as to pay for Katrina and Iraq.
I am sofa king glad my personal Web site got me in trouble with the local news biz so’s I’m not working for them. Under pressure to increase earnings 15 percent every quarter means I’da been out the door anyhoo.
It really sucks here in Bumfuck.
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mary said on September 20, 2005 at 11:56 pm
For about two years I worked in Hunts Point, in the Bronx. Most of the produce that comes into NYC goes through the Hunts Point Market. There are prostitutes on Hunts Point Avenue and surrounding streets waiting for the eighteen wheelers after they’ve delivered to the market. These are the hookers who are too burned out for Times Square. Too old and sick for the Lincoln and Holland Tunnel exits. These are the nastiest looking prostitutes I’ve ever seen, anywhere. About once a week one would get run over by rear wheels of a truck she’d been chasing, trying to jump onto the running board of the cab. The cops would just pick up the body and hose off the street. The wholesale company I worked for had all male employees, except for me. Any time I left the office, someone from the warehouse would walk me to my car. Not so much for my safety, but to chase away any hookers who might be using my car to lean a john on while she serviced him. After seeing those women every day all other hookers look downright glamorous.
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MichaelG said on September 21, 2005 at 8:58 am
So the NYT has 12,500 employees and is canning 500 of them. They can start with Miller, Brooks, Friedman and Tierny. You can throw Keller in there too.
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