I am tired, sunburnt, & completely discouraged.
Yesterday morning, I went for an interview at a swanky resort. It was really encouraging. Not only does this place have an HR department, but at my interview (which took place at it's scheduled time,) i was asked questions regarding my qualifications, interests, favorite & least favorite jobs, you know, interview questions! The polite, professional HR recruiter told me that there were two guest-services positions he had in mind for me, & scheduled an interview with the department heads for this morning.
Still without a car, & having reached the bottom of my shallow bank account (leaving me zero dollars for cab fare,) Roomie dropped me off a few hours early as she drove to work. This is fine, i still had the Kerouac to finish, & it gave me some solitude in which to conduct a private conversation with the Beau i left back home. What i didn't realize, was that the terribly weak cellular signal on the island was sucking the battery from my phone 4x faster than usual. So, a short, frustrating conversation later, my phone is already dead.
The interview its self was fine. I spent about 45 minutes talking with the resort manager in a very professional, interviewy fashion. Unfortunately, the department heads aren't able to make it to the meeting, so he'd like me to come back tomorrow & meet with them. Fine. A third interview is practically a sure thing, so. Fine.
Let's recap:
1. Phone is dead.
2. Money is zero.
3. I am stranded on an island 10 miles from the one i live on.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Keys, let me point out what makes this last bullet an issue. The major keys are connected by the Overseas Highway (or US HWY 1.) This means that you take cars (not boats) everywhere you go. Not having a car severely limits one's ability to get from one place to another. There is no bike lane, there is no sidewalk, in most places, there's barely a shoulder. It's a two-lane highway spanning across the ocean.
There's no one in the HR office for me to ask about the bus schedule, so i think i'll be a tough girl, & just walk the five miles to the next island where Roomie works. The beginning of the walk is fine, the first channel still has the original bridge intact, so i have a nice stroll far away from the highway. Unfortunately, after the bridge there is elaborate road-work that i am not tough enough to try & wheedle my way through.
Turning around, i walk back to the resort, where i find someone who knows very little about the bus schedule, but assures me that at 2:45 it stops on the highway in front of the resort. I kill the next two hours reading in a giant banyan tree, which helped make this day seem more like an adventure, & less like a disappointment. Sadly, it was by far the highlight of my day.
Not wanting to miss the bus, i walked back to US1, crossing the busy highway right at 2:35. Not wanting to risk standing on the roadway, & being too afraid to perch on the guard-rail, I took a seat on the coral boulders between the ocean & the traffic. Almost immediately, a man in a BMW with a thick middle-eastern accent pulls over & offers me a ride, which i obviously declined. Surprisingly, no one else pulled over while i waited. Instead, there was a steady stream of whistles, honks, & catcalls during the two hours i sat waiting for a bus that never came. It was horrifically humiliating. It was everything our mothers warn us not to do. It was awful.
Finally, at 4:30, i decided that i oughtn't risk my only chance to catch a ride home with roomie, & start walking. Thankfully, the construction had ended for the day, so i was able to walk along the side of a major highway with little impediment. Five miles later, the best thing that could have possibly happened, did. Parked in the lot of a keyzee general store, was my cab driver from yesterday. He recognized me as i walked by, & insisted on giving me a ride home.
So now i'm exhausted. Sunburnt. And entirely discouraged.
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