I had an interview at the kennel today. This is the professional pooper scooper position I talked about.
The first part of the interview, I'm sure, was Duke. Duke is the rescued Doberman they're looking after in hopes that someone will adopt him. I'd guess he's a younger dog, but still, a Doberman. If you're not a dog people, this is the breed that will prove it fastest (as many people wouldn't recognise a pit bull if they saw one). Thing is, I believe he's the first one I've ever met, and I was struck by the fact that both my uncle's dogs have been Rottweilers, and they were both more intimidating than Duke. About the same height, but with a lot more bulk. Still, what do you expect of police dogs?
I said hi to Duke, and held out my hand for him to sniff before I petted him. Then I got to drag him out of my crotch, because he's a dog and was exactly the right height for that canine pastime to be no obstacle. When in the middle of conversation I stopped scratching his ears and he decided to jump up on me as to encourage the ear scratching, I even made a valiant effort to get him down. I don't do well with strange dogs or toddlers because while I would like to assume they're trained, the un-trained can decide they don't care for my tone of voice and choose to escalate the situation.
All the same, I'd say I passed the Duke section of the interview.
However, she was very up-front about it being a part time all the time job. They offer paid birthdays. Other than that, there's no time off unless we can work the schedule out. This includes holidays, which would be double, but still, it means you're out first thing on Thanksgiving cleaning up dog poo. She knew I was from Iowa, and asked whether that might be a problem. I told her that might possibly definitely be a problem.
And it is. We could do it, except that The Boy is also looking into a Christmas internship, and right now he's looking at the road house theatre (the one that brings in the big travelling Broadway shows) back in DM, because he could work there and we know people who would be glad to let us live there free for a couple weeks. Since his truck doesn't make the eight hour job anymore, and certainly not in winter, that's reason number one not to take the job. The other is that I pointed out that his mother would never get over it if we weren't back for any holiday or during the summer, because however long I had the job, we probably wouldn't be able to get out.
The other thing is that, while I like animals, I dunno that I really want to go out in the freezing snow on Christmas morning and clean up piles of dog crap.
Right now, the other alternative is that I do try for the library job. After I finish my last library book, I'm going to go in and see if I can't find out more about that. It's the same hours but for something like 60 cents more an hour. The problem with that, of course, is that they're not even going to START looking until September 14th.
TB and I talked about it, and he originally said that we'd do whatever we had to do. It's a job, I need the job, I can look for something else and quit if I need to. First of all, as I've mentioned before, I don't hold with that game. You don't take a job if you know you aren't going to stick with it. Second, the woman said she really needed someone who would stick around. She said if I were looking at something else too, I should probably take that instead. Thirdly, I drove home that this would mean no getting out of the state at all as long as I had the job, since I'd only have evenings and some Sundays free, which would increase the possibility of our relatives coming down here and he would, doubtless, be left on his own with them for a given amount of time.
He pointed out that if I don't get the library job, then I still don't have a job. He's absolutely right, but I just think that on the whole, it's not right. It's a definite offer, but it doesn't seem like the "smart" decision. Problem is, I'd suppose it's probably the "safe" decision.
I'm not certain whether I'd rather live smart and dangerous or stupid and safe.
Did I just type that? I think I'm not the person I thought I was.