Enough Strength For You

Rejection

I decide to make my way back to UA. I know that the campus is closed until the first day back (which is in 3 days), but I don't want to go around my house and if I am going to be working school nights, I want to work somewhere close to the school. I made up my mind to just go into every business and just ask them if they can hire me. I know I need to tell them my hours, which are weeknights from like 8 pm to 7 am (so I have time to get back to the dorm and change into clothes and get ready for school), and all day weekends.

I get to the area around UA when the sun is pretty high in the sky, but probably sometime before noon. I see a coffee shop and pick it as the first place I am going to ask.

Ten minutes later I am walking out of the coffee shop, having been rejected, headed to the next place. This happens for the next 12 places that I try, no one willing to hire me, probably because of my hour's availability.

By this point it is well into the afternoon and if I keep up the luck that I have been having, I don't think I am going to find a job. The next place I walk to is a grocery store. I enter the store and see a sign saying 7 am-9 pm. Great. They close when I can start working, but I ask anyway like I did with all of the other places.

I get up to the counter and see an old man working there.

"Sir, could I speak with the manager or your boss perhaps?"

He looks at me through his glasses, "I am the manager and I am the boss and I am the owner, now what do you need?"

Okay that was easier than all the other places, "I was just wondering if you were hiring. I need a job, but I can only work from after 8 pm and before 7 am and I know that your sign says that the store is basically closed during those hours, but I was still hoping maybe you could find me a job. Oh and I can work any night for those times and I can work all day Saturday and Sunday. Just during the weekdays, I have school so I can't work during the day because I can't miss that." I Iook up at him after finishing my "pitch" if you can even call it that. I could tell he was thinking, he probably wanted me to work, but because of my hours, he can't have me work. Great, here comes another no.

"Well son, you are right about the hours of my store and you are right about you not being able to miss school, but I think I will hire you!" My eyes quickly dart up.

"Wait what, but when am I going to work and how is that even going to work out because the sign also said that you were closed Sunday so li-"

"Hahaha, woah take it back a notch son. Look around you," I turn my head to see his store, which is really filthy and there is almost nothing on the shelves, "You see how dirty everything is and how there is barely any food on the shelves. Well, the delivery for my food comes every night, but I can't put everything on the shelves and I don't have the time for stocking everything or for cleaning. So how does this sound because I am starting to lose customers: Every night, you come in here at 11 pm and you clean up my store and stock all of my shelves and make the store look nice and pretty. If you do that every night, except for the night between Saturday and Sunday, then I will let you eat a free meal from my store, nothing excessive, every time you work and pay you 1000 yen per hour. And you can high tail it home after 5 in the morning. So by that math, you would get 6000 yen per day plus a free meal and I will have the cash for you the next day if everything is to my liking."

Holy crap, I can't contain my excitement. Maybe I won't be as bad off as I thought I would be. This guy is so nice, he is giving me a job and said I get a free meal basically every night. This is amazing.

"Yes! Yes, of course. That sounds amazing. Thank you so much. This is fantastic."

He just laughs at me, "Okay son, I will see you tonight for your first day on the job and then the next night, but then you already get a day off after that but don't get used to it because you will normally have to work 6 days a week. Hahah I'll see you later sunny."

I laugh at his bad joke, but it was pretty funny to me, "You bet. I will see you tonight at 11!" I leave the store so happily. I can't believe that I actually have a job, and it is perfect for my schedule and after just one week I will have 36000 yen. That is crazy.

Okay, okay. I need to calm down. First things first, I need to find some cheap clothes and a watch for work. I need to know what time it is so that I don't miss work or anything or even stay too late.

I pull out the money that I have from my backpack and count up just under 20000 yen. Okay that is doable. I just need a watch, cheap shorts, and a cheap shirt. I walk to the nearest clothing store and buy just that, leaving me with just 100 yen. Okay, once I start saving money, I am going to have to buy a bigger backpack, although my stuff will usually be in my dorm room. And then I could actually start buying some more clothes and other stuff. This is really awesome. And I still have the weekends off (well mostly). Wait! I still have the weekends off. Maybe someone else will hire me to work just weekends. Then I could be making even more money!

With that thought, I start going through the cycle of rejection once more, hoping someone will hire me for just the weekends. 8 rejections later, I walk outside of the store and notice that the sun has set. I look at my newly purchased watch and see that it is 8:42 pm. Okay, maybe I just ask this last place, a diner, before I head over to my work.