Well, school is almost upon us once again. Depending on where you live, it can be a week or three, or maybe your kids attend an all-year school that started up again in July after a much shorter break. In the two districts I’m signed up with, it starts in 1½ and 2½ weeks. What’s that you say? Two districts? That’s right. I am only in hometown and supersized districts this year due to my continued job of shooting pictures of cars. I have chosen to work three days a week on the cars for now leaving two days to teach. Of course it will likely be another month before I am needed as a sub, but that’s the plan. As you probably figured out already, these two districts are where I have gotten most of my work in the past and so I stuck with them, losing the less productive ones, even though near-urban paid me the most.
So how is the new job going? Well, I got my first store finally- unfortunately it’s 45-minutes away! The one who had this store didn’t do a very good job so he was replaced. Not the best way to start, but I’ll take whatever I can get. Today, in fact, Kim (one of the owners of the company I work for) and I spent much time fixing the stickers on the cars that were tilted, stuck over unremoved adhesive from previous buyer’s guide (warranty info which by law has to be in the window even if just handwritten) or otherwise placed with a lack of care. I think we did no less than two dozen. The rest of my time was spent in doing four cars that were ready for me. Not a lot, but the idea is to have three dealers (four if they are small like this one) in one day to shoot a reasonable amount. The most I had in one day training with Rene was 42. At $7 a car that was nearly $300 for the day for her. Of course that was three large dealers, and even then that number is rare. My goal is eventually 20-30 cars per day. Another trainee may be leaving as his school just gave him a reality check- no, it is not possible to graduate in a reasonable time if you only have classes two days a week. If he leaves then I am hoping to get one of the stores promised to him, but not the other one. There is a dealer that is way over toward Chicago (strike one for the bad traffic). They require the cars to be shot in their warehouse a mile away, meaning the cars have to be driven from their lot to there, adding a tremendous amount of time (strike two). Also, the warehouse has bad lighting with three of the five lights burnt out the last two times I was there making it difficult to take pictures inside the cars (strike three). I am scheduled to do new cars every other week, but the one who has been doing the used cars while Pat was training to take it over can keep that part as a punishment for his bad performance at the dealer he lost (yes, same guy)!
In the meantime, all this work has meant that I haven’t gotten the DVD done yet for my kids from camp- I’d better start on it soon, or just do what I did the first year- give them a CD with all the pictures, but that’s no fun and can’t be viewed without a computer.
My hometown starts classes on the 24th. Others start the next week! Where oh where has the summer gone?!
Last chance to visit!!
Oh? Are you leaving town? 😀
Visiting will be more difficult with this new job, but not impossible. I would have start work early on a given Friday so I could head out there by mid-afternoon. I am still interested in that Halloween idea L proposed.
We start on the 24th – well, one does, the other one has orientation that day and starts the next day, then has a day off since they’re doing the first day of Kindergarten separate for boys and girls.
Does that really help to orient the boys and girls separately? I have never heard of this.
We shall see – it must be relatively new since they didn’t do it when T was in Kindergarten. It also helps give the teacher more time with each student to get to know them. And we are still trying to make the Halloween at King’s Island idea happen, though they won’t get back to us about whether they’re going to do the VIP tours for the HalloweenFest – if they don’t, we won’t go. We are tentatively looking at Columbus Day weekend since my mom is off and can come to our house to stay with the kids – hey, maybe an IL carpool opportunity 😉
If we ever hear back from them, I’ll let you know!
Also, is this full-day kindergarten then? If not, it seems to me they could have done boys in the morning and girls in the afternoon just for the first day.
Hmm… Think I would make a good administrator? 😛
As for King’s Island, sounds like a tentative plan!
It’s not full day – kids who live in the city go to Kindergarten in the afternoon while country kids go in the morning. I think they don’t do the gender-separated first day like that to avoid confusing people about which session they will actually be attending, dunno just a guess. And remember, T is starting middle school which is 4th grade here!
Be sure to let me know if it is true middle school (homeroom, different teacher/classroom for each subject, art/music/foreign language every day, etc), or name only.