The Path of the Bookseller

In a nutshell: I need to get back to San Francisco. I don’t know how to do it.

The Tiferet project for which I came to Cleveland has ended. Actually, it was effectively dead before I got here, but there was no way to ferret out that information from a distance. My collaborator left town a few months ago. There are effectively no opportunities to do anything here.

And my job is steadily crumbling.

Originally, in San Francisco, I was a full-time employee at the store. I was assured that the same job was to continue at my new store in Cleveland. When I got here, I found only a part time position waiting for me. From what I can piece together, everyone was acting in good faith when the error happened: in the communication between the two stores, one store tacitly assumed that the other was talking about a full time job, while the other had tacitly assumed that it was a part time job.

When I got here, I had to take what was available. But had I known that I would not have had full time employment here, it would have nixed my involvement in the project, and I would have found some way to stay in the Bay Area, in the full time job at the San Francisco store.

With the loss of the full time position, I lost my benefits, most importantly my health coverage. And, since it looks on paper like I voluntarily quit the full time position in favor of part time, other possibilities disappeared.

I have also, as the company tightens its belt, been working fewer and fewer hours. Early on, in the run up to the holidays, I was working as many hours as was possible for a part timer. Now, however, we’re cut back to the minimum. In each of the most recent two weeks that I worked (not counting my obligatory trip to New Jersey for Passover, for which, since I am no longer a full time employee, I received no vacation pay), I was scheduled for only a single six-hour shift. More hours have popped up occasionally, to cover for people calling in sick or other crises, but they have been increasingly rare and not predictable.

Living out here is difficult and surprisingly expensive. While things appear more expensive in San Francisco, that is almost entirely attributable to the rent (about 3 times as much as here) and the cost of gas for those who drive (about 25 cents per gallon more). Items in stores cost the same in both places, with groceries, especially produce, being more expensive here and of far lesser quality. A monthly bus pass here costs more than twice what it does in San Francisco, with the bus service being, at best, infrequent and spotty. And, since what I was told was part of the city turns out instead to be a deep suburb, it’s a mile walk to even the closest store.

At this point, I can’t afford to continue as I have. Even though my landlord is allowing me to continue in the house, paying the same amount that I had been even before my roommate left, I’ve had to depend on my family to cover my rent, and their willingness to help with that is reaching its end.

I’ve spoken to people in my company about the possibility of returning to work at one of the stores in San Francisco. In the eight months since I left my old store, there has been a near-total turnover in management, and I haven’t been able to get a clear sense of what might be possible in returning there.

I’ve been told that they could definitely use me at another store further south in the city: while most of our stores are radically cutting back on their CD and DVD departments, this one is apparently actually increasing its collection, and they could especially use someone with my background in classical music and jazz. But they, too, can’t promise how many hours I would get. (And commuting to there from anywhere in the East Bay would be implausible.) I also have a good possibility of employment at another bookstore, but only if and when another position opens up, and only if I’m already in town.

Most importantly, San Francisco is where my friends, contacts, and community are. I know myself well enough to realize that the single most difficult thing for me to handle is isolation. I need to be where people are, in working with customers and coworkers in the store, and in touch with people outside of work. With my limited hours here, the lack of a community of peers (almost all my friends here are still undergraduates or just out of school), and living in a suburbs where I don’t ever see my neighbors or even know their names, I feel as if I am stranded in a tundra here.

But the biggest expense in living in San Francisco remains the rent. Almost anywhere in the city, it is more than can be handled on a bookseller’s paycheck, even a full time one, without either some sort of roommate arrangement or a second job. (I’d be open to either.)

Getting my stuff back there would be a challenge, though not an insurmountable one. Everything that I have here and would want to bring back would fit in a small van. I would worry about driving a UHaul (or equivalent) back myself, since I haven’t been behind the wheel of anything in five years. There would be expenses in moving, though I now know to avoid the situation that resulted in my move out here costing so unexpectedly much.  And, of course, I would need a destination for the stuff when it got there.

As I see things, it would make the most sense for me to head out by the end of May. I can’t afford my May rent, and, while my landlord is good and merciful, I can’t see staying on past the end of next month unless something radical changes.

I don’t really have much of a sense of what to do next. I open the question to the group mind.