So yay. I hit the 6 month mark at my new job. I still call it my new job. It doesn't feel new anymore (it only took about three weeks for it to cease feeling new), but it seems to be like the new mall syndrome.

You know how in most towns/municipalities/counties there was a mall built in the '80s that was a Donald Trumpian gleaming ode to '80s consumerism that completely blew the doors off the existing local mall that was built in the '60s or '70s? The existing mall was a perfectly fine gathering place for the local citizens to procure their personal goods and household effects and consume oversized hot pretzels, take the wee tots to see Santa and the Easter Bunny and get their ears pierced. But then they built the new mall and one by one the stores from the existing mall who could afford the higher rent moved to the new mall. Eventually the existing mall became the old mall filled with weird and oddly specific shops ("Stitches Needlepoint Thread Shop" "Hammerz and Nailz"), shops specializing in cheap luggage and fake members only jackets, and stores selling those multicolored twisty candles. Often there was a JC Penney that hung on to the bitter end, but eventually they, too, moved to the New Mall when they added on an annex. The new malls had perfectly lovely names, but to all the locals it was always known as The New Mall. Oddly, I've noticed the old malls never fully become The Old Mall. Locals still refer to them by their given names. But the new malls, no matter their legal given names, no matter how old, are referred to as The New Mall. Saturday Night Live did a series of class skits about this. I'd post links but NBC is brutally protective of all things SNL.

Anyway. My new job seems to be afflicted with The New Mall syndrome. I suppose it's because I was unemployed so long and people are relieved I have job and want to revel in the glory. "So how's the new job?" Six months into it I still get asked this a few times a week.

The New Job really kind of sucks. But because I had such long and painful ordeal finding a full-time job, I feel like I am not allowed to ever speak ill of a full-time job that pays me a regular paycheck and health insurance. I feel like I have to be eternally grateful and humble and walk in a cloak of humility for the rest of my days. I am grateful. Of course I am grateful. And for the first time in a very, very, very long time I have a terrific manager. But. Even she confesses: My job sucks. It sucks so badly that my manager is trying to help me find another, better job. She feels guilty for convincing me to take this sucky job. Let's face it, it wasn't a hard sell. I was a month away from homelessness. Any job was a good job at that juncture. It was truly an 11th hour hail Mary Danger UXB save at the last possible second. And for that I am honestly, truly, sincerely grateful. But I'm just saying, for the record, my new job sucks. I'm at my desk and solving problems and crises at 7:30 AM and I usually don't leave until 7:30 - 8:00 PM. Often I get home and do paperwork until 11:00 PM. There is always work to do on weekends. Always. I've taken a 45 minute lunch exactly three times in six months, and those lunches were with my boss who lied and said we had to go to a meeting at HQ. The rest of the time I eat my lunch at my desk while I'm working. I am routinely followed into the ladies room by someone barking requests at me, or, when I return from the ladies room there are phone calls, emails or notes stuck to my screen demanding to know where I was and that I see/talk to them immediately because they have urgent needs. (You have no idea how many times I hear that a day, "Urgent need.")

I got this job because over the past five years everyone who's held this role has quit or been fired. Many people quit after the first few weeks. My manager was called in to "fix" the problems. She studied the previous people in the role and made a list of traits that did and did not work. Apparently a few people were offered the job before me and they refused. The reputation of this job was that bad and that well known. My boss was desperate. And then I came along. I was desperate, too. So. There you have it. That's how I finally got a job offer. A desperate manager needed to fill a job no one else would take.

Why do I work such long days? Is it a matter of working smarter not harder? Pffft. No. I have to work really smart. If I weren't working smart I would have been fired or I'd be working even longer days.

The reason I work such long days is because our client only hires interns and people right out of college. And that would be okay if they were bright, savvy, professional and talented interns and recent grads. But they're not. In the six months I've been there 12 people have quit, and 17 have been fired. The good ones quit, the not as good ones screw up so badly, so many times that eventually they get fired. My manager and I are tasked with picking up the slack. I hate the term dysfunctional. It's overused and cliché. But this situation is the definition of dysfunction. It's the reason why the term dysfunction was created. I always wondered about the origin of dysfunction. Now I know.

But I have a full-time job and for that I am truly and sincerely grateful.

It will be a long time before I'm back on my financial, emotional, and social feet. Unemployment took a debilitating toll on every aspect of my life. That doesn't all just evaporate the second you get a job offer. It will take me years to scratch and claw my way back to where I was before I was laid off. And if you will recall, I was not exactly in a great place. That's how bad things were - my sorry state of affairs before I was laid off is the stretch goal that will not realistically be attained for a couple years, at best.

People ask me if I'm enjoying having paychecks.

Erm. Yes?

They ask me what I did with my first paycheck. (I paid my mortgage and bought a bus pass so I could commute to work. And I bought a big bag of apples.)

My friends invite me to go shopping with them. They think it's now socially acceptable to invite me to join them in their favorite pass time. I don't have time, or money, to go shopping.

I ordered some work clothes online. A few pair of trousers, a blouse, a skirt and yes, a new pair of shoes. I bought snow boots (because it was January and the boots I had were old and leaking). My most satisfying purchases were underpants, bras and socks. Mine were so old, threadbare and tatty they really didn't qualify as garments. I didn't throw them away, they just sort of disintegrated into sad little piles of thread.

My favorite thing about a paycheck is being able to shop in the produce aisle and buy toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and soap. It's exciting to not have to diffuse my shampoo with water to make it last longer. It's very gratifying to look at Brussels sprouts with the smug knowledge that I can buy them. It gives me deep comfort to not have to ration my deodorant use.

One very positive thing that came from my unemployment is a friendship that blossomed via a freelance project. We discovered we have a lot in common and have become quite good friends. It's really nice to have a girl friend in town again. Heck, it's really nice to have a girl friend again. Double heck it's really nice to have a friend again. And now that I have a paycheck, when we can carve out a few hours on Sunday afternoon I can afford to go to a matinee or cash in a Groupon to try a new restaurant.

Yes, I'm really going nuts with my income.

The focus is on digging myself out from the hole that went almost to China. And little by little fixing up my condo. The goal is to sell it in a few years. To do that I have to do some work in the bathroom and gut-rehab the kitchen. Which was the plan when I bought the place. But then I had surgery, my dad died, I was laid off...the plan was derailed. So I'm trying to get it back on track again. One small project at a time. I'm focusing so hard on this that clothes, shoes...all that other stuff...doesn't interest me. Well, that and after what I've been through I can't muster the interest or desire for anything frivolous. I need new curtain rods for my living room - I look at them online the way other women I know look at handbags. My mother gave me a new air conditioner for my birthday. It's the most exciting present I've had in years. I wept when we checked out with it at Lowe's. Wept. Tears of joy. I have actually hugged it. When I walk by it I give it loving pats.

Does it make The New Job worth the suckiness? Not really. It's a sucky job. There's no silver lining with the actual job. But. I am grateful to my manager for choosing me. She had a sea of equally desperate candidates from which to choose, but she opted for me. It was finally my turn to get the job offer. And I am hugely grateful for that.