Living Life Part-Time
Posted on: March 5, 2010
Since I’ve moved to New York I have worked as a recruiter, admin, receptionist, jewelry specialist intake/outtake coordinator, an event coordinator, outreach coordinator, candidate coordinator, and currently I have a job as an after-school sports coordinator. I can “coordinate” anything. With all that work experience I’ve learned superfluous titles sound important but pay very little. I think the word “coordinator” was invented to give those of us on the bottom rung of the totem pole something to put on our resume when we are looking for a new job. If coordinator is in the job title, the work is definitely temporary.
When you get out of college you either get a job somehow connected with the actual field you studied, but if you are something like an English major you take what you can get since there aren’t too many jobs as Reading Coordinator. I wanted to be an actor – I couldn’t be weighed down by any commitment to a corporation, I needed something just to pay rent before Michael Bay discovers me and decides that I was the perfect person to have stuff blowing up around. I’ve spent six years of deferring loans, jumping job from job, turning down corporate offers to stay tied down and secure. I thought not having a stable job equaled suffering to do what it takes to be a STAR. The STAR’s appeal has lost it’s luster and I find myself afraid to be locked down by work in hopes that my big break is just on the horizon.
Currently I work part-time wrangling children into throwing, swinging at, kicking lots of balls. I get my balls kicked everyday. The job is random and when I tell friends who have witnessed my athletic prowess that I teach kids how to play sports, they laugh and then laugh some more. The job didn’t pay enough for me to stay in my old place so I moved, but it did afford me the time to pursue my writing. Now that I am turning 29, I realize that all these little jobs I’ve held provided flexibility but no savings. In fact, like many New Yorker’s, I live past my means. Hell, I live past my ends. Even though having little money holds me back in many ways I fear that a better paying job would serve as financial cuffs. If I got a stable corporate job, I would be able to afford a better apartment, nicer places to eat, shopping Loeman’s more but then the wheel would spin and in order for me to keep those nice things I would have to stay in that job, buy more nice things, get more money, buy really, really nice things and spin and spin and spin. As the Wheel of Fortune turns and the dollar signs and prizes start to blur, so do my dreams.
This past week I thought I might leave my part-time job to take the wheel for a spin. Debating between having a permanent job and living life La Bohemia is an absolute luxury. A luxury that was made possible by my parents, a higher education and luck. Many people are not lucky enough to have the choices I’ve been afforded. Choosing to be a starving artist is indulgent, with it lies merit and integrity, but yes, I am LUCKY enough to have options. After sleepless nights, countless conversations I’m not ready to buy a vowel. I think the other part of my time is better spent chasing the horizon.
buy the time ... 
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