The seven month contract (part 6)

After eating fondue, we went back to the skatepark.

By the time we got to the skatepark, I was limping a little bit. I had hurt my foot before meeting Julia at the mall. As sweet of a girl she was, she started to massage my foot when we were sitting next to the bowl. Hours had passed and I still hadn’t kissed her yet. I was starting to get a little bit nervous. The skatepark was empty and we continued to talk. As day turned to night, we saw one skateboarder arrive at the park and we sat there watching him while he did a kickflip over a hip. The night was drawing to a close and I decided to call it, I was going to fail my objective and I was just going to abort things. I was still limping and Julia wanted to see that I got home safely, so I invited her over to my house to have some coffee. I must have made a saving throw.

She drove more than 12 miles just to make sure I got home safely. Inside we both had a cup of coffee and I figured that it was as good of a chance I’d get. To look for an opening, I told her that she had a strawberry seed stuck in her teeth. I’d try to sneak a kiss that way. However, when I told her that, she panicked and ran straight to the mirror to find it and get it out. Well that idea flopped. I told her to relax and nothing was stuck in her teeth. Without any sort of transition, I just decided to go for it. She was sitting still and just looking forward. I moved in and kissed her cheek very lightly. Objective complete. My job was done. It only took me half the day to do it too.

She asked me why I kissed her and I told her that I thought she could use a little tender loving care. Confused at this statement, I told her that it was because her boyfriend broke up with her a few months prior. It was at that moment when the mood took a very sour turn. Her face turned full of sorrow and her body went limp into the sofa. A few awkward silent moments passed and eventually she said I was a real jerk for bringing it up. Not knowing how to deal with this situation, I just sat back a little bit and waited to hear what she had to say. She said it had a been a few months and it still hurts. As I was sitting there next to her, I felt like I was just absorbing her sadness. After another awkward silence, she asked if she could hold me. I told her yes. How could I say no to her? Her body was warm.

Holding her close like that made me feel so good. However, I felt kind of guilty because she felt so miserable just a moment earlier. After a few minutes, she said that stunt I tried with the strawberry seed was pretty lame. The mood seemed to lighten so I thought it was as good a time as any to kiss her on the lips and inside the mouth. And she was very receptive. Her eyes closed as we got near, I could feel the taste of her lips, and our tongues swirled around each other. She caught my tounge in her teeth and softly bit my lips. We did this repeatedly, I felt like I couldn’t get enough each time. Afterwards, Julia took some of her medication and swallowed it with water. Still feeling somewhat sad, she took out a small bottle of soapy fluid and blew some bubbles into the air. She handed me the wand and I blew a few with her. Blowing bubbles helped cheer her up when she was sad. She told me she even blew bubbles at work occasionally. We talked for a little while longer and when she was ready to go, I kissed her one last time.

The seven month contract (part 5)

As easy as my job was, I came to understand that my labor was demanded much more than my skill set. I talked to a few of my colleagues and was surprised to find out that some of them majored in non business related fields. Henry mentioned that he was a criminal justice major. Later, as the project continued, a big part of our task was to check the work that our colleagues did. One case that was stacked and reviewed would be checked by two or three other people to see if documents were missing or the wrong value was used.

There were a few potholes that we ran into along the way. Around June or July of the project, the auditing company created a program that would store all the files. This tool had a few bugs that had to be resolved during the first week. The program would time out frequently and sometimes, it would take up to a full minute or two just to upload one document. Considering that each mortgage had at least 20 documents to review, this made the job incredibly cumbersome. During implementation, our internet would go out every so often. The worst part about having the internet going out was that we had no idea how long it would go out for. It could be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 45 minutes. I even recall work being canceled one day because of technical difficulties. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until I showed up to the office and no one arrived for half an hour.

Sometime during June, I set up a date with Julia again. I had one very clear and simple objective. Kiss Julia. How to set that up, I didn’t know. I just knew it had to be done. We met each other at the same mall and then went to a local park just to stall for some time. There was a restaurant I was going to take her to. The biggest appeal of it was that it served hot pots and chocolate fondue. At this point in time, we had been to a number of restaurants before. I just wanted to get chocolate fondue because I hardly ever have it. However, there was something else to it. Fondue requires skewers to dip food into the chocolate. I wanted to do the gesture of feeding chocolate covered strawberries to Julia and vice versa.

The pot was in front of us and the waiter set down a plate of fruits, marshmallows, candies, and  pretzels. We each ate a few pieces then I took one of the strawberries, dipped it in the chocolate, and fed it to her. She was apprehensive at first to bite it but then did the same with a banana slice and fed it to me. It was a little awkward at first because we had to make sure not to miss each other’s mouth or hurt each other with the skewer. To play with her a little bit, I made sure to dip my pieces of fruit in the white chocolate before feeding them to her. Eventually, we were able to feed each other pieces of fruit at the same time. She bit a dipped strawberry on my end while I bit a dipped pineapple on her end. I picked up the bill and the total cost came out to be less than $17. I didn’t mind paying. After all, it was less than one hour of work for me.

The seven month contract (part 4)

Since it wasn’t directed at her, she responded by talking about the story when her friend Beth had sex for the first time. Beth was so nervous about getting pregnant that she used a pregnancy test and asked Julia to use the same test just to make sure it was accurate. I had to ask how Beth’s first time was. And Julia said that the first time always hurts but the second time was really good. It felt very easy to talk to Julia about this. She even felt comfortable enough to tell me some of her embarrassing stories.

Towards the entrance of the park, there were a few benches next to the bathrooms. As she was sitting down, I told her one story about a time when I was in high school and sort of flirting with this one girl I liked. The girl’s name was Cindy and she asked me to sit next to her during class. Instead of doing that, I walked over to where she was sitting, put my hands behind her back and under her thighs, and just lifted her out of her seat. While the teacher wasn’t looking, I carried her back over to where my friend and I was sitting and placed her in the seat next to me. I told Julia this story because she was sitting in a position where it was easy to grab her and carry her. She expected nothing as I placed my right hand behind her back and my left hand under her legs and was holding her in my arms.

“Please don’t drop me.” She yelped in my arms.

“Funny. That girl from high school said the exact same thing.” I held her tight.

I touched her and I got her to talk about sex. Things looked like they were going well.

Days at work had gotten better. With flexible hours, I could leave my house at 6:45 AM and arrive at the office to clock in at 7:30 AM. Around 12 PM or 12:30 PM, I would clock out for lunch and drive over to a fast food restaurant. I usually spend about $7 to $8 on a spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a soda. I’d only take 30 minutes for lunch and clock back into work at 12:30 PM to 1 PM. I’d then work until 4 PM and start driving home. At 4 PM, I could make it back home in about 45 minutes and I’d be at home at 5 PM and have 7 hours to enjoy myself before going to sleep at midnight.

For the first few weeks, I was just moving files and organizing them for other staff members to analyze loan amounts. I was getting more money than I ever had made before and I was content. I was almost happy even. Throughout my entire time there, I only used the phone maybe five times to contact the help desk to get my passwords reset. Gone were the days of angry customers complaining about late payments or missing forms. About once a week, we had a team meeting that was announced through email.

March 2012

For the month of March, I spent a total of $825.03. I was over budget by a few hundred dollars but I felt okay to spend again because I would be working again. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $213 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. My new commute was miserable. Mornings were okay but coming home in the evening would take me 2 hours. It got to the point where I had to fill up my tank twice a week because I was spending so much time in traffic. I spent $165.05 on fast food by eating out 18 times. I spent $65 on business related expenses. The cost was to file an application to be approved to sell insurance. I spent $21.94 on new clothes. I also spent extra money going to some restaurants with friends before my employment started.  

April 2012

For the month of April, I spent a total of $1443.61. I experienced more car problems. While driving a friend home, all the electricals on my car started going crazy. My power locks went on and off. My lights flashed on and off. My power steering started to go out as well. I took my car into the shop to get it serviced at the cost of $620. This was the point when my parents started to try to convince me to buy a new car. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $225 on gas by filling up my tank 7 times. Gas at this point in time was more expensive. It was more than $3 a gallon and I was always buying premium which was about $.40 to $.60 per gallon more expensive. I spent $202.57 on fast food by eating out 23 times. At this point in time, my mom took a vacation to visit Taiwan so I was eating more fast food as I didn’t want to cook or wash dishes. There was also a place that sold chicken biscuits for breakfast and chicken sandwiches for lunch right next to my office. I really liked the place and ate there a lot.

May 2012

For the month of May, I finally got my expenses down to a reasonable level. I spent a total of $649.24. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $251 on gas by filling up my tank 7 times. I spent $98.26 on fast food by eating out 15 times. I spent $5.50 on a coloring book and some crayons for a date that I went on with Julia.

The seven month contract (part 3)

But then in April 2012, things started to change. On a social media site, she mentioned that she was sad. That was the description, nothing else was said. We met for coffee one night in April and out of the blue, she told me that she broke up with her boyfriend. My suspicions were true. The signs had sort of been there. Ting told me Julia was having problems with her boyfriend. Julia told me that her boyfriend was planning to move to Japan in a few years so she knew her relationship wouldn’t last.

With her old boyfriend out of the picture, I saw an opportunity to make something happen. First off, I had to give her some time to get over her breakup. Since they had been together for almost three years, I figured that one week would be good enough. In reality, it is a really jerk move to try to pick up a girl right after a broken relationship however I had to move in quickly. If I didn’t move in, someone else might.

I remembered being nervous when I called her one week later. It had to be a phone call, I didn’t want to send text messages. And calling girls was always the worst. Throughout high school and college, I remember I had trouble finding out what to say so I would have to carefully think about it before hand. I absolutely dreaded letting the conversation go limp and having dead space over the phone. Even worse was calling a girl and getting the voicemail because I could never leave a voicemail without sounding retarded.

I called Julia and got her voicemail. I left her a message where I stammered out a few points and probably repeated myself once or twice. Luckily, she called back and I could feel much more relaxed to ask her to go to the park on Friday. Thankfully, she said yes.

On my way to the park, I was thinking about how to move forward. Julia and I were friends at this point, but without doing anything different, we would just stay friends. I remembered being told that if you want to make her a girlfriend, I would have to start treating her as more than just a friend. I’d also have to risk losing her as a friend as well. It was a risk worth taking. So the mentality changed. I knew I would have to touch her more and flirt with her. I’d have to make her feel attraction. I would have to do these things but I didn’t know how to frame everything. I was kind of at a loss for fun and interesting things to do.

The first thing we did was we went to the dollar store at the mall and buy some coloring books and crayons. After 15 or 20 minutes, we were at the park under a pavilion coloring pictures of superheroes and cartoon characters. It may have not been sexy or exciting, but she definitely wasn’t expecting it. Really, all I cared about was engaging her in conversation.

While we were walking around the park, we talked about work, families, video games, and our friends. As a way of touching her, I made sure to walk very close to her and our arms or shoulders would occasionally bump into her. I didn’t want to push her away after all. I told her several anecdotes just to make her laugh and steer the conversation and eventually I got to one that was somewhat risque. I don’t remember how the conversation led to it, but I told her about the time my friend called me at 8 am in the morning just to tell me he got laid for the first time. It was an anecdote to bring up the topic of sex without directing it at Julia.

The seven month contract (part 2)

When I arrived on the first day, I walked into the bank up to the fourth floor and saw that 8 to 10 people that started a few days before I had. I sat down at my computer and logged in. Management gave me a list of files and credentials to log into a few different databases. For the first day, I was downloading files from three or four different bank databases, saving them into a folder, and emailing them to a different location. I did this for more than 25 different mortgages on the first day. I was amazed how I was getting paid $17 an hour for this. Due to the sheer volume of documents to examine, a good part of my job was just to download files from one location and send them to another.

After management told us we could go home, I packed up my things and started driving home. However, the drive was absolutely miserable. My new job location was located 26 miles from my house and the most direct route there was the bypass around the major city. In the morning, the commute was fine, but at 5:30 PM, it would take me two hours to get home. During my first few weeks on the job, I was using so much gas that I had to fill up my tank twice a week instead of just once. Eventually, they gave us flexible hours so I immediately scheduled my 8 hours to avoid traffic as much as possible. By the time I started my first job, I had about $24000 saved up.

My spending habits also started to change. During my first job, I was spending only about $550 per month however I was spending much more with my second job. I had months where I spent $700, $800, and $900 regularly. Part of this increased spending was due to the fact that I was making more money but the other reason was because I knew my job was only temporary. It felt kind of nice to spend a little money. During March and April, I also had a few car related expenses. I spent some money on repairs and a few hundred dollars on new tires.

By the time I started my new job, I had begun talking to Julia again and I saw her a few times. I remember why I wanted to see her again. When I was employed again, I didn’t feel like a loser anymore. She was just a friend that I like to be with. Nothing would ever come of it and I was sure of it when I saw her in February of 2012. She was talking about how her boyfriend was so cute about messing up her birthday and then making it up to her for Valentine’s Day. In her words, he was so cute even when he screws things up. I knew it would go nowhere. What I had with Julia was as good as it was ever going to get.

But then in April 2012, things started to change. On a social media site, she mentioned that she was sad. That was the description, nothing else was said. We met for coffee one night in April and out of the blue, she told me that she broke up with her boyfriend. My suspicions were true. The signs had sort of been there. Ting told me Julia was having problems with her boyfriend. Julia told me that her boyfriend was planning to move to Japan in a few years so she knew her relationship wouldn’t last.

March 2012

For the month of March, I spent a total of $825.03. I was over budget by a few hundred dollars but I felt okay to spend again because I would be working again. My insurance premium was $203.40. I spent $213 on gas by filling up my tank 6 times. My new commute was miserable. Mornings were okay but coming home in the evening would take me 2 hours. It got to the point where I had to fill up my tank twice a week because I was spending so much time in traffic. I spent $165.05 on fast food by eating out 18 times. I spent $65 on business related expenses. The cost was to file an application to be approved to sell insurance. I spent $21.94 on new clothes. I also spent extra money going to some restaurants with friends before my employment started.  

The seven month contract (part 1)

I sent an application out to an IT staffing agency. The agency had a contract with a large bank and a large audit firm to perform an audit on the bank. The job paid $17 an hour and I was excited about the prospect. So, I answered a few questions the recruiter asked me over the phone and he asked me to drive over to the corporate office to fill out some paperwork.

The following week, I dressed up in a suit expecting to be interviewed in person. I also brought along all the documents they requested from me if I got hired. After filling out paperwork and getting scanned copies of my documents, they told me that the job would be starting in the middle of March 2015. There was no real interview, I was going to be working again. I would be working at a higher wage as well.

After getting the news of employment, I dropped my plans of continuing in the insurance field and I stopped going to the meetings at the financial firm. My second job was only going to be a temporary position. They told me ahead of time that the contract was only going to last five months. By August, I’d be looking for work again.

The audit was a compliance audit. During the years of 2009 to 2011, the bank issued several mortgages to people that lived in areas at risk of floods. The auditing company had to make sure that for everyone of the mortgages issued, the mortgage holder needed to have adequate flood insurance. The nature of the audit required a person to look at the structure value of the property and check to see if the property was insured to the correct amount. It was simple work but the challenge was the sheer amount of mortgages that had to be checked. Since the auditing company didn’t want to hire employees just to do grunt work, they contracted the grunt work out to a third party. That’s where I came in.

Inbetween jobs the first time (part 4)

The other big takeaway from the class was that insurance policies can be customized with all different types of options. They really are just like cars or houses in that every policy can be tailored to suit every individuals needs. However, nothing ever comes for free. Extra benefits and perks will come at the cost of higher premiums. After one week, I started studying all the materials and notes and made sure to set a testing date at a testing facility. When that was completed, I got my results as soon as the test was over and I passed.

When February arrived, I repeated the same process again. I went to a one week class to learn about property and casualty insurance. After the week was done, I studied the materials and then took a test at a testing facility. By the end of February, I had my license to sell life insurance and I was about to get my license to sell property and casualty. I was about to start gaining experience in the field until I got a phone call one day.

January 2012

For the month of January, I spent a total of $583.45. After gainful employment ended, my monthly expenses should have dropped from $550 to about $400 because I wouldn’t have to spend money on gas. This wasn’t quite the case as I started new endeavors. I decided to sign up for the insurance classes to become qualified to sell life insurance. The class costed $140 to attend. My insurance premium was $146.80. I spent $153 on gas by filling up my tank 4 times. Even though I didn’t drive to work anymore, I still drove to the sales company to get training and I visited friends with my free time. I spent a lot less money on fast food as I only spent $39.54 by eating out 5 times.  

February 2012

For the month of February, I spent a total of $793.35. While I was hundreds of dollars over budget, I didn’t feel so bad as I started to receive unemployment benefits. I spent $239.20 on business expenses. Of the $239.20, $180 was the fee to take the exam for the life insurance and property/casualty exam. Before I could get my life insurance license, I had to get myself fingerprinted which cost $59.20. Unfortunately, my premium for car insurance increased to $204. I called my insurance agent just to confirm that rates all around my state increased due to an increase of claims in 2011. I spent $105 on gas by filling up my tank 3 times. I spent $92.82 on fast food by eating out 7 times. One of these times was with Julia. I spent $43 on tax preparation. The tax company I went to had a special where they would file federal for free so I only had to pay for the state filing. While I could have filed by myself easily, I wanted to get it done fast and efficiently. I spent $17.82 buying motor oil.