Election Nights

I've worked the majority of Tuesday nights for the past 7 years or so. I have worked a lot of election nights (including the Gore/Bush '00 debacle). I usually work early the next day. But, I CAN'T possibly go to sleep without knowing the outcome. I am an optimist, so even if my candidate is currently down 4% with 65% of precincts reporting, I'm still holding out. Same with the proposition I'm desperately rooting for. It's killer.

Right now, I have 5 tabs open in my browser: this, npr, msnbc, cnn, and bbc. I'm obsessed. I could just be doing some homework, and check up after a half hour or so, but I've decided to stalk the news websites instead.

Well, in other news, I have 40, almost 39 days left until graduation. And only 23 more shifts at Target until then, too. Actually, make that 22 if I get the day off for Maggie and Beth's graduation down in Springfield. Pretty exciting. I have yet to get a good hit from any of the many resumes I've sent out, but it seems like everyone wants people with actual degrees. Not someone who has, oh, 8 1/2 years of work experience and ALMOST a degree. But whatever.

I plan on bombarding many potential employers about two weeks before I graduate. I'm going to have to write a million cover letters, but I'm going to make sure that they don't sound contrived. I would seriously flip out if I actually had a job offer BEFORE Christmas. Even if I couldn't start until after the new year, just knowing that I was getting out for sure would be amazing.

Here's another election related bit of info I learned tonight: I asked our store manager (who's pretty in the know, not just a corporate robot) what the impact the raise in the minimum wage in Missouri would have on our store. I was curious because we currently hire people at what would be the new minimum wage, and I had a feeling that Target wouldn't ever pay people the minimum, because it makes them look bad. We've been having hiring issues lately, and we are all sure that our low starting wage doesn't help. We've asked HQ for an increase in our base pay three times this year, but they've denied it every time. But Tim, our manager, said that most likely HQ wouldn't ignore this. So...not only will Target folks in MO make more than the Jan. 1 minimum wage of $6.50 (which is also tied to inflation), BUT there would most likely be pay increases across the board to allow for continuity- those of us well above the minimum would get a proportional increase. Brilliant, since I still don't think I make enough, and I'm not even capped (though fewer and fewer team leads seem to be staying long enough to be eligible for wage ceilings, but I digress).

Ok, well, I'm off to stare at the ever-narrowing gap on cnn, msnbc, npr, etc.