Revolution Cycles (or, my weekend job!)

This weekend I started my new job at Revolution Cycles, a bicycle shop in the DC area. It is my first retail job (or, really my first real-person job). It is so much more fun than I expected. At first the stock was overwhelming–3400 22.5s and 2.3s and Piranhas. (Oh My!). I am a Greeter, which means I stand at the head of the stairs and charm the people who walk up.

Once I was reading about INTJs (which is what I usually test as) and it said we appear extroverted because we’re so curious about how everyone else lives in their worlds; I think that’s why I like this job so much. I get to peek into other people’s lives–how they think about money, who are they showing off for, what do they think of themselves, what they think of Washington DC. It’s not a deep job, but it is fun.

I am also learning to put bikes together–we store them semi-assembled, with handlebars  loosened and peddles off. I now know how to put peddles on a frame, straighten the handlebars, tighten everything, and get it upstairs and into the right slot. A simple and satisfying kind of knowledge.

It is also a good break from my weekdays at my desk–my complex, difficult, delightful and sad-making job. My days when I do nothing but read stories of torture and bad governance give me a sense of purpose and virtuous output. But I feel like my body is atrophying when the only use it has is carrying me to the Metro and to my work and to the park for lunch and back to work and back to the Metro and back to my dorm. My brain is happy, but my body is sad. I need to do something physically involved, where my body and strength really matters.

Like Karate or weaving or pottery.

Or assembling and stocking bicycles.

There’s something I hate about gyms–they promote useless exercise, muscle development without purpose. I need to be fit in a purposeful way–strong enough to carry a toddler, fast enough to run for the metro, flexible enough to retrieve lost mail from behind my bed. I need my body’s shape and strength to mean something.

Inspirational Quote:

“This was why I jogged, so I could run like hell when something was chasing me. Thinner thighs was not incentive enough.” Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (Character by Laurell K. Hamilton)