San Francisco, California - January 27, 2002
Ahh.. San Francisco.. the land of rampant unemployed, expensive rent, and no parking. It sometimes feels like I'm in a third-world country here. Now I have a new job. Working for the City of San Francisco at City Hall. Everyday that I walk out on the street to get lunch and I walk by the Public Library surrounded my the homeless. Walk down Market Street by the hustlers and dealers and more homeless. Several ask me for their change. I go into a restaurant, the best restaurant to meet more homeless is Wendy's Restuarant. While I sit there, a few other homeless guys come off the streets and ask for some change. Then a homeless guy sitting near me with a bottle of concealed alcohol tells me 'hey buddy, if you don't finish any of that, give it to me, I'm hungry man!' Ahh.. wonderful wonderful San Francisco. Two years in New York City and I've never experienced anything even remotely like this. The only place even close would have to be Manila in the Philippines. But here I am in San Francisco, California, and being asked every five minutes for change.
Well, enough of my complaining, you can set your violin down, I know this has been a sad tale so far. Well getting beyond that, these days I'm working for the Department of Elections. There is an election in March, and I was able to get a job doing some basic things to help organize and prepare for that. I won't go too into the details, but that is where I'm at now.
The last job working at an investment bank was only parttime creating presentations for bankers. It would have been a good gig had it been fulltime and lasted longer. I was lucky to get it though, and equally unlucky to lose it. But in the new Bay Area economy, anyone is lucky to get anything. I've been to dozens and dozens of temp agencies and employment agencies. No one is hiring. Almost every one of them has the goal to put their previous unemployed people back to work before they take on anyone new.
In addition, I have now added a newsletter which anyone can sign up for. Just go to yahoo groups for kevinmaher, the email if it works should be kevinmaher@yahoogroups.com. You can also email me directly at wintermoon2@yahoo.com to sign up for the newsletter. I don't plan to spam anyone, its just an email noticifaction that a recent entry has been made. Sign up!! Also, if you could email me with any feedback and if you have interest in the San Francisco journals. I haven't been updating the site so much because my main goal was to make people aware of what its like on a daily basis in foreign cultures. But just recently I've begun to reconsider that some people, particularly foreigners, may have an interest in life in California? Email me with some feedback, I'll respond..
Next Journal Entry:
February 2002
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com