Work week?!  HA!  I'm unjobbing!  I might "work" two or three days at things-I-do-strictly-for-money, but there isn't enough of a work week for me to answer this question easily.  If I'm eating at work, I'm probably being fed sandwiches at the School of Medicine (on days when I play a carefully scripted role of patient for the students to play doctor).  One week they ordered pizzas--it was week two of a three-week session of working two long days a week.  They wanted to break up the sandwich monotony.  Well, they ARE monotonous.  Especially if you're suspicious of "lunch meat" and go for the vegetarian sandwich of sprouts-lettuce-cuke-&-tomato with a schmear of cream cheese.

I haven't popped in here much lately, but happened to tonight.  I almost didn't answer this question because I didn't feel like explaining it all.  I wanted to be inspired, not get an essay question, so I looked back at the past few weeks' archives of Writer's Block questions, and they're even less interesting!!!!  I never gave a crap about NFL stuff (except when the Bears were in the Superbowl and I was in Jr. High), and I don't care to learn enough about Palin to give an adequately informed opinion about all that.  

So, how much money do I spend on food consumed during work hours?  Very little.

I'm occasionally active on another blog, or two.

Oh, speaking of unjobbing, check out this graphic of vicious vs. virtuous cycles.

That it would be a job!

I <3 unjobbing, unschooling, and unchurching.

Relatedly, we're starting a Food Not Lawns Springfield group on Yahoo.  (I have no idea why it's a Yahoo! Tech group.)

Did I mention the new Little House in the Ghetto, on an easier-to-use popular blogging site.

Someone who loves me seemed a little bothered by the plasma thing. They suggested I look for work in Springfield's tourism industry (while the cheap fuel lasts, presumably). I was like, yeah, and take out other people's trash and wipe their tables and pretend to be happy about it? They suggested I be a tour guide.

SO WHY don't I get a regular damn job instead of bleeding for bucks?

A job requires a certain way of appearing, a certain rigidity of days & ways, a certain muffling of the marvelous when it wants to utter a truth hilariously damning. Where is there room for compassion & creativity-our innate human strengths-in the square holes of cash register or cubicle?

What is a dollar worth? Less than a Canadian dollar, now. When will the silver in a dollar be worth more than the dollar?When you have a regular job, you have to spend money to support it. Stress relief, commute expenses, dress code requirements, convenience foods. You also spend time devoted to the job that's not counted as time"on the clock" or "at work." Deducting from pay the extra expenses attached to the job, and adding to hours the real amount of time devoted to job or recovering from job, you may find your job's real dollars per hour is half what you're told it is.  Is it really worth it?  For all the meaningless shlock products and compounding interest on old debt that suck up the money?

Our solution, with much thanks to Un-Jobbing: the adult liberation handbook by Michael Fogler, has been to pay off debts, spend radically less, work less, and have so much free time that I get so busy with home & permaculture & unschooling that I don't want to take the time to surf the buses & sidewalks around town to even collect job applications.

Also, I'm one of the introvert minority, & I can't stand to call people I don't know, or ask anyone for anything, or pretend to be pleasant & outgoing when I just want to think. It's like fingernails on a blackboard to me. I would SERIOUSLY rather sit & wait a couple hours (reading) & then sit an hour with a needle in my arm. I sit, with the Matrix plugged directly into me, and either watch TV or try to read while the TVs are on. I try to relish the bizarreness. If I get my arm really comfortable beforehand and don't move it, I barely notice it after a while. The workers have all been really good and nice. I'm honestly impressed.  Amusingly, since I started doing this, we've found out a few other people we know are doing it too.

time at the job site: 6 hours/week
pay per week: about $55
pay per hour on site: $9.16
Commute expense: $1.50 bus fare
dress code: comfort
boss: none
schedule: loose

I must point out, and THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, that if either of us got a real job, we would not be able to do what we do, or make much progress on our plans. 

Since our erratic part time work with the school of medicine is not quite enough for us to scrape by, and it's long been "my turn" to get a frickin' crappy job, and the only thing as bad as a job is looking for a job--especially, I think, for an introvert like me--my dear Sharqi suggested I try selling plasma at the plasma place.

Considering, when I was young, I once passed out after having blood drawn, and considering that on other occasions I've gotten rather lightheaded from minor accidents, plasma donation wouldn't seem to be a good fit with me.  But I figured it would still be better than looking for a job.  And it is.  I went back the third time today!

It's been pretty busy there, so if I count the time I spend waiting as well as the time (about an hour) with the needle in my arm, it works out to about $35 for about four hours or a half a workday's being "occupied" there.  Considering the costs of formal employment (e.g. clothing, laundering, commute and vehicle expenses, stress relief), it actually seems like a decent deal to me.  It only costs me $1.50 in bus fare to get there and back.  I usually read as much as I can, and doing so I may have begun catching up on all the books people have given me to read. 

For me, I think the biggest negative is the TVs that are always on everywhere.  Just think of people having conversations instead of watching inanity punctuated with advertising.  I don't think I saw a single ad for anything I actually need except healthful delicious food, and the actual food the ads refer to is never going to be all that healthful!

I'm pleasantly surprised to find the staff at the plasma place to be quite pleasant to work with, if a bit harried.  The three different phlebotomists who have "stuck" me now have all been very professional about it; I guess they get plenty of practice.  Believe me, I don't like pain, but the discomfort of the plasma needle is minor, especially compared with the many discomforts of seeking, finding, and enduring employment!