By Rachael Simoes

y’all hiring

Hot, young retail assistant in your area. Only has two years of experience, but desperate to learn more. Recently handed in her letter of resignation, so she’s emotionally vulnerable. Needs to pay her way through school and is ready to do a n y t h i n g to earn some money.

Let’s put my financial situation on the internet because what bad could possibly come of it? Hi, my name is Rachael, my mum has been lending me money for rent for the past 3 months while I worked on Sundays in retail to pay for food and other luxuries. I had enough savings to pay rent for the first two months of SCA, now I have a whopping 39p in my Easy Saver.

I recently handed in my very salty letter of resignation because the aerial manager decided that splitting my 8 hours onto the two days (two shifts of 4 hours, in addition to hour-long commutes) I’m not at SCA was essential to the performance of the store. This was after me writing a letter explaining that I may need a day off to, you know, breathe. Retail management is notoriously sketchy. I digress.

What does this mean for me now? The heat is turning up with book crits and short mid-week briefs, and too with my habit of buying commodities to keep my self-esteem in these critical times alive. More deadlines, more work, more silk gowns. Less time, fewer sources of income.

Finding a job isn’t easy. Finding a job that’s on an 8-hour contract and requires minimal effort and is in a quiet area is even harder. I’m as lazy as I am proud to ask my mum for more money. Thank Technology Gods Indeed.com exists and has made it just a few taps of the thumb to bombard every store with my CV.

To be honest, life usually works out for me so I’m not too stressed about it. I also don’t have time to be stressed about it. I have deadlines, honey, we have to keep it moving. We had a shift in partners on Monday. Now, instead of having a partner who lives two hours away, I now have a partner who works evenings and weekends. Both incredibly talented and dedicated art directors, so I have nothing to worry about except them getting caught sleeping in a masterclass.

In September I was working 8 hours on Saturday and Sunday because I had to make up for my 20h contract change before it changed to only 8 hours on Sunday. I did tell them in advanced I needed to cut my hours. Again, a retail manager thing. I won’t get too into it, but I wasn’t at my best in September due to a lack of downtime, meaning it was a lot harder for me to get myself in a mood to make good creative work. I have 6 months left at SCA, I won’t let that happen again.

I found that a lot of the SCABs I write are a bit serious and sometimes come from a place of self-pity. I’m quite good an finding what’s wrong, from what I remember I was a pessimistic kid. I’ve done well these past few years to count my blessings instead. But I think we can all admit there’s no drama in a blog post where I talk about how grateful I am for being at SCA. If y’all know someone who’s hiring or a sugar daddy, hit me up.