Two Jobs

Ambition is a two-sided coin. Many view it as a positive thing to have, with too few people who can actually embrace it. On the other side, there are and have been plenty of men who's lives are consumed by it.

I have been harping on my wife since we've been married that I should get a second job so we can have some extra money to throw around. It wasn't just to live frivolously. I would honestly like most to have a fat savings account so I could react quickly when there was an emergency car repair or if we needed to make an emergency trip to see family. For the last couple of years, she kept convincing me that it wasn't necessary and that the costs would outweigh the benefits since we would never see each other.

Well the time came when the baby was born that she could no longer work (or at least neither of us wanted her to) and my income from a single job wasn't bringing in enough to pay the bills. So hubby needs to get a second job so we can get ahead. I was already partly employed with a security installation company, though as a salesman. Now they need technicians to install the equipment. Cool, I say. I would be good at that and I've always wanted to do something technical.

So once I get through training I begin installing in the afternoons and then working the overnight shift at the gas station, my primary job, it goes downhill pretty quickly. I'm so tired from working the overnight shift that I don't wake up from a call to get an install. Three times I show up late because of this, and three more times I am expected to go service an account or perform an installation and I have to cancel due to other responsibilities. I get chewed out by my supervisor, then I get chewed out by the office (who I'm sure has no authority to do so, but it happens anyway) and then I get chewed out by the customer when I finally arrive later that day.

Then when it comes to the installs, I am pretty slow. Now, thats ok with me. I understand that I'm learning and I'm driven enough to want to get faster at it. After all, more speed=more money since I am paid a flat rate for each install. But for the first three weeks, I have to travel to each house twice (a 45 minute drive each way, without traffic) in order to completely finish the installation. Then when I leave and assume everything is fine, I get a text from the office saying that I forgot a signature. I don't get paid until I get that signature.

Three trips out and three days later I'm ready to get paid on that account. YES! $50 coming my way! Then I get a call from the office asking me to go fix someone's system. Apparently it is screwing up. So I go fix it in half an hour and then call the office to tell them the job is done. The office then tells me that since I didn't call them to tell them to shut the alarm off remotely, the police are now on their way to the house and I get fined $75 for my negligence.

Four days and 16 hours later, I am $25 in the hole.

And thats why I quit. Because I'm not a charity.

Mind you, all of that is my fault. But there is no way to be in the mindset to think that pre-emptively when you're running on 3-4 hours of sleep. Coupled with the fact that I never see my family and that I'm putting useless miles on an already near-dead car, and the second job causes me to be late for my primary job twice in two weeks and you find that having that second job just doesn't make sense, financially or otherwise.

Would I like to make more money? Absolutely. Do I need to make more money? Definitely. But installing security systems simply doesn't work.

And that, world, is my attempt at managing two jobs.

I may attempt to get a more basic, less demanding second job, but for the next couple of weeks, I think I'm just going to stay in recovery mode, because I love sleeping a full 6 hours.