Migration2009 -- I am back from the on the job training. I had thought that being on my feet for 8 hours a day would be the biggest challenge, but oddly it was almost a non-issue with the help of Tylenol. The biggest challenge was in fact the psychological aspects. Lately I have become really averse to the retail attitude, so to speak. I've found myself wishing Hutchins, Wallace, et. al. in the new media community would stop with the selling and just be themselves on Twitter. The constant sales pitches drive me nuts. This became an issue during the on the job training due to the push for revenue generation. I suspect it has to do with the Feeling aspect of my INFJ type. As I see it, people don't come to the Post Office to hear a sales pitch. They come in to mail something, pick up a package, what have you. They want to get it done as quickly as possible and get on with their day. I respond to sensing this in people by trying to be as efficient and non-annoying as possible. Being required to give an unwanted sales pitch that annoys people when they're already annoyed at having to stand in line for 1/2 an hour goes against all my Feeling instincts. The job is telling me to do one thing, my INFJ instincts are telling me to do another. There was quite a bit of disagreement with my instructor on this point and I spent half a night unable to sleep until I figured this out. It doesn't help that I could lose my job due to my objections to this. And of course I resent being threatened in such a manner to gain my compliance rather than trying to talk it out and understand what's going on in the situation. When confronted with such things, INFJs just get stubborn right back. That whole "this type cannot be successfully coerced" thing? It's real.

But I got soldiered on, talked to my instructor about it, she assured me she understood but I still had to stick with the script, and I still feel bad about it. And not at all certain I can handle doing this job.

Then yesterday, Friday, my last day in Athens, my instructor got in touch with the postmaster of Gainesville to try to find out for me when I'm supposed to be there. And the other shoe drops.

It seems that the PM of Gainesville didn't post a window clerk job. He has no idea where I got that posting and asked me if I knew where the REC got that posting. I sez I don't know, that's what Mr. McCollum offered me, he had a list when he offered it to me, that someone else before me had won that bid but took another bid and I was offered it after that. I accepted, and here I am on my last day of training... but they don't even HAVE full time window clerks at the Gainesville PO. I'd have to come in as an SSDA instead of an SSA, I'd have to learn a scheme, or do something else altogether. The bottom is dropping out of my mind at this point, because I just spent $1700 to rent a house in Gainesville, I've got a house here I'm looking at foreclosure on, and a job I thought was a done deal suddenly vanishes out from under me. The second time this has happened, if you're keeping score.

To his credit, the PM of Gainesville seems like a really nice guy. He said we'd work it out, he understood my situation, that he'd find something for me to do in Gainesville. So Monday I'm going in to the REC to bang heads together again, and there will be a conference call with everybody in the room. It may be a small satisfaction to watch McCollum squirm when he's asked which orifice he pulled that SSA posting from, but I'll take what I can get.

And on top of all that, finally got the voicemail from the relocation people.

And my cellphone started acting screwy last night, and I can't determine if it's the phone or the AT&T network.

So I have quite a bit to do this weekend. Groceries, vitamin store, etc. And packing, of course. Further bulletins as events warrant.