Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

More info for Place of Safety

I got a couple of maps of Derry, today. One's from 1905 so only vaguely useful; the other is from sometime in the early 50s, when the Creggan Housing Estate was being plotted out. It shows the streets of the Bogside as they were before redevelopment destroyed them...each named. This was worth the money, no question.

Unfortunately, other questions are ramming me, at the moment, so I'm not able to focus. I've been getting hints that I may be out of a job, soon, and I am not at all in a place where I can handle it. It may just be my own sense of inadequacy and paranoia eating at me -- I've never been comfortable in Caladex's office; I have to do things in there that are the opposite of how I normally work. Keep secrets. Not help people as much as I'd like. Follow specific steps in minute detail to get things done. I understand why all of this is necessary; it's just not intuitive to me.

I'm sloppy. When I do a packing job, I know how to keep things in order and what needs to be done where. I showed that when I packed up a painting on glass and transported it 300 miles in the back of a minivan without it being damaged...or any of the other items with it. When I pack books for shipping by air or freight, they arrive in good condition...unless the freight company goes out of its way to damage them, which has happened, once.

Same for dealing with UK and European requirements for export licenses and customs paperwork. We're bringing dealers in for the Boston Book Fair, the end of the month, and even though others in the office had gone over this one dealer's packing list, I found a couple of issues that needed to be addressed...while I was still away from the office. We're working on getting them corrected, now.

But when it comes to all the details of setting up the shipping and schedules and handling the vendors we use, I'm crap. I assume they will do their jobs, but half the time they don't. Even FedEx and UPS have reached the point where you have to monitor them, nonstop, and I feel that's intrusive. Which is stupid, but real.

And it's telling. By this point, I should know everything I need to know...and I don't. I'm still hesitant about how best to fill in a master airway bill of lading when it's coming to the US but not going the normal route and is without a sub-airway (known as a house bill) and it makes me feel very inadequate. And working out the best, cheapest routing is still beyond me.

So while I wouldn't mind leaving the job, I would mind not having the salary. And that's the rub. I'm broke beyond measure; in debt up to my eyeballs. If I lose the income, I'm bankrupt...at best. So I'm now spending my time trying to figure out my next move.

And coming up zeroes.

No comments: