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Even though I've talked about my job in several of these journal entries, I've never actually explained exactly what I do. Since I've got nothing else to write about at the moment-- at least, nothing that can be discussed in a publicly viewable forum, since most of my thoughts are focused on more personal matters-- I might as well use this entry to clarify what I do for a living.

My job title is "orientation interpreter". Most of the time, this means I stand outside a historic building or a trade site in Colonial Williamsburg, checking tickets and also telling visitors they can't bring food, open drinks, or chewing gum into our sites. I'm perpetually astonished at how many people don't understand why it's a bad idea to walk into an original 18th-century building with their coffee or gum. I've dealt with people who actually chose to stand outside and chew their gum rather than spit it out and go into the site they'd paid to see. confused

For the first four years I worked for CW, I worked at the Visitor Center; and while this job had its unpleasant aspects-- mainly ticket sales, which I hated with a passion-- most of the time I gave orientation walks, 30-minute introductory tours that provide a brief overview of the Historic Area, the restoration of Williamsburg, and basic information for starting out (using the map, where the restrooms and bus stops are, etc.). When the VC management decided to transfer this responsibility to the OI department-- and in the process, force our supervisor Barbara Kaars, the only person in management who actually stood up for her employees, into retirement-- I transferred as well. I had no intentions of sitting behind a counter in a building that looked like a ******** airport day after day, trying to convince hapless tourists to buy a two-day ticket when they were only in town for one day.

In the two and a half years since that switch, I've taken on numerous other responsibilities. I trained to take school group tours, and that led to clearing for most of the major buildings in the Historic Area. This year, the Revolutionary City program (which I'll rant about more in a later entry) added yet more challenges-- mainly because it involved restricting access to a portion of the main street in Williamsburg, which had always been free and open to the public previously. For the most part, I'm not unhappy with my job-- I've got fantastic health and dental benefits, I don't work for the winter but still get paid unemployment, and while there are a few assholes among the guests I deal with every day, most people are very polite.

And yet, I still feel unsatisfied. I don't get paid nearly enough to deal with that small portion of guests who treat me like s**t; and there's no upward mobility in this organization at all. The higher-paying jobs all require something like five years' experience in an extremely specialized field; and the other available positions either pay the same, or even less, than my current job. I've applied for three different jobs in the past few months, and haven't been interviewed for any of them. And I don't trust my department's management to be of any assistance; if anything, they're jealous and fearful of anyone who's smarter than them (and I could easily run this organization better than our supervisors). So while my situation isn't terrible, I'm still not very happy with it.