By now, unemployment had become routine. I’d wake up around noon, maybe get invited to lunch with Steve (Bryant) and he would usually pay (part of the process to keep up my morale). Then maybe go hang out somewhere to kill time. Either Adventureland for the weekly RoleMaster game Andy Powdermaker ran or some other places, I can’t recall exactly. Afterwards, it was back to the apartment to veg out on cable, piece together another WMAG tape (that’s another story) or tune in WXRT on the stereo while I worked on my Macintosh LC. “Work” would be a subjective term too. If I wasn’t piecing together a printed version of Maggi Picayune for a friend, I was cleaning up a piece of scanned art in Illustrator after Streamline turned it into a vectored file. Don’t worry if you didn’t understand the previous sentence, it means I could waste hours on something tedious. I frequently found myself staying up until dawn through this vicious circle. If Internet access was more prevalent then, I probably would have accomplished even less: posting to message boards, reading even more trivial junk, learning make my own web page, etc.
Greg took it pretty well. He rarely ever “lived” in the apartment, even when I was employed, and as long as I kept the stereo’s volume low enough for him to sleep, he never complained to my face.
It was all starting to blur together at the end of January so when I received the call from Chief City Graphics, there was a feeling of relief. Not only would I be bringing in more than $132/week, I could rejoin the rest of the world by getting my sleeping pattern back in line.
Chief City Graphics, or CCG, was a service bureau up north in scenic Pontiac. It only paid six bucks an hour and I had to piss in jar but I was desperate. The part which stunk were the employment conditions. I didn’t exactly have the job in the typesetting department, I was a temp without the benefit of an agency. It definitely explained the other nickname for this place from the regular employees/clients, Cheap City Graphics. What else could these people do? They lived in Pontiac and the only other major employer was the state prison, the more infamous one is in Joliet: home of East St. Louis and Chicago’s finest.
Getting work was still a victory. I finally cooked that steak I was storing in the fridge for the occasion. This wasn’t exactly the gig I hoped for but I had to eat it before freezer burn set in. The better part was leaving a couple flyers around GDW for Lazz and Steve to let them know how my situation had improved. Lazz told me later about one detractor tearing it down, probably the alcoholic Dave or his ally Olle, the boring Dead fan.
The job turned out to be pretty dull. There wasn’t much typesetting. Most of the time I remember trying to stay busy which is always frustrating; why is it the employee’s responsibility when the production manager (a rather clueless and unpopular fellow named Brian) should be delegating this. There were enjoyable moments beyond the paycheck. I became re-acquainted with QuarkXpress (hadn’t used it since version 1.x in college). Discovered the publishing industry’s hatred of PageMaker (it didn’t do color separations well). Spent time reading exciting trade publications such as Chemical Processing Today, Aggregate, something for locksmiths and my personal favorite…Coal. The day I got the opportunity to redo the color separation of a customer’s magazine cover was a huge thrill. I think I still have a copy of the issue somewhere.
I grew tired of their stringing me along by the end of March. Upper management wouldn’t commit because they weren’t sure I would stick around for the possible second-shift position being created. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! When managers waffle on their decisions, they reap what they sow with the employees. I found it irksome. Back then, second shift was perfect. Sleep in, cover some errands during the day if necessary, get to work around 4 PM and have the bulk of the work day to myself, mainly to control which music was played. It was similar to my time at kinko’s in Milwaukee. Meanwhile, they had another woman my age in the position then. She was griping to have a day shift because she was getting married and being alone creeped her out. The co-worker also grew tired of CCG’s hemming and hawing so she landed the job at kinko’s I almost scored but Dave of GDW sabotaged me.
Upset over this whole debacle, I stepped up my campaign to get something else in April. There was an interview in Chicago that was a total bust yet it was a perfect excuse to visit Paul and Helen. I think there were applications elsewhere too. By May, my friend Rad got me in touch with Dynamic Graphics which resulted in an offer before Memorial Day. CCG did give me a greater understanding of publishing, QuarkXpress and the then “state of the art” Mac OS 7.1. It’s a good thing they didn’t give me the second-shift bit. I think I would have realized too quickly how out of sync my life would become with my friends in the 8-to-5 routine.