In which I was able to quit a job I very much did not enjoy and replace it with one that involves CHEESE.

I applied to, like, between 17 and 22 jobs over about a month’s time.

Two declined via email; none of the others even responded, save I think one that sent a “we received your application” message. One called me back for an interview. One.

Luckily, the one job I interviewed for hired me on the spot, so now I have a lovely P/T job right here in the neighborhood! It’s a one-block walk to work! The pay’s the same as the last job, nobody screams at me, and I get to taste yummy cheeses.

I work in a cheese shop inside a big liquor store. We make and sell sandwiches, sell cheeses and a few meats, jarred things like marinara, honey, salsas, bulk olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sweets, crackers, chips, olives, dolmas, pâtés, pastas, martini shakers, bottle stoppers, and baguettes. It’s a really fun little shop featuring a lot of local items — the sandwich breads and baguettes are baked a block away, and there are multiple Minnesota cheeses — plus a bunch of imported European treats.

My job involves customer service, sandwich-making, dishes, cashiering, sweeping and mopping, slicing meats and cheeses, weighing things and putting stickers on them, and keeping cold case temperature logs.

It’s so much better than taking calls for Comcast! Nobody yells at me! I get to eat cheese! I get sandwiches half off when I’m on the clock, and an employee discount on booze!

It’s so great. And I totally need the physical activity, so I basically just look at is as paid enforced exercise with some free socializing thrown in.

Plus: cheese tasting!

All the people I’ve worked with so far are lovely, the work is hard but not that hard (it’s not endless, cascading, unsolvable systemic customer service failures, but my feet do hurt), and I think my training is coming along well. Mostly I just need to memorize the sandwich recipes so I can make them more quickly without having to refer to the directions.

Oh, and tips! Not much, got about twenty bucks my first week, but it effectively made the pay rate a skosh higher than my previous job where people screamed at me half the time and all the employee-facing policies were hostile.

So: whoo! New job!

Yay!

In unrelated news, I went to Planned Parenthood on Monday for a UTI I think I’ve had for a month or more. The last time I had one I didn’t even know until the nurse called and demanded to know why I hadn’t told her I had a UTI two days before a surgery, so I guess my symptoms are typically mild? The dip was negative (they sent my sample off for culturing), but they gave me some pills anyway which I picked up across the street at Cub. I read the insert when I got home and was too freaked out to take them for two days because WHAT IF I’M THE ONE WHO GETS THE POTENTIAL SIDE-EFFECTS. (Anxiety is so stupid sometimes. Also, the last time I had a UTI was when I had that uterine fibroid, so I’m half convinced I’ve got another one, because ANXIETY IS SO STUPID SOMETIMES.)

Took my first two doses today, and believe I’m already feeling better, but I also think my period just started, so that’s another layer of feeling weird to confuse the symptoms. Who knows. Twenty-three day cycle, egad.

Aging while female is really no joke, no, not at all.