Abandon Your Hopes, Ye Hopeless Jobseeker: The Less-Than-Divine Comedy of a Luckless Jobseeker in an

Chapter 1

1

 

Hell’s Bells, I’m Stuck in Unemployment Hell

September-October 2011

 

September 30

 

As the sun began rising over the city of Louisville, I arose from my bed and bellowed, “Why am I getting up so early? I don’t have a damn job any longer!”

     So began my first day of unemployment.

Because I was no longer a working stiff, I spent most of the mornings writing my blog, An Ordinary Joe’s Soapbox. From time to time, I fantasized myself making a living as an author. I haven’t done this because I had heard too many horror stories about unkempt, starving writers living in hovels in Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and other cities.  I was afraid of committing career suicide because potential employers may think I am one of those weak, snobbish, “girlie-man” artiste types, rather than a macho guy who enjoyed getting his hands dirty in a business.

As soon as I finished the post, I drowned out my unemployment sorrows by buying gifts for my mother-in-law, and cheap books from Books-A-Millions for myself. I was actually more bored than sad because I had learned I was going to be canned several weeks before. I glanced over my mail and noticed I had received a job rejection letter from a Superior Court in Indiana. A few hours later, I received a rejection e-mail from the government about a statistician position for which I had applied weeks earlier. I guessed the old saying was true�"when the rejection letters and e-mails rain, they pour.

In the evening, my neighbor Martin Hayes and his children came over to visit. We ate fish ordered in from a restaurant, while my wife cooked up macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was an impromptu birthday party for my mother-in-law’s ninetieth birthday. We sang an off-off key rendition of “Happy Birthday” and devoured slices of sponge cake.

The next day, I holed up in my home office�"aka the Dismal Dungeon�"and resumed the serious work of job hunting.

The first thing I did was revise my resume, which is a French term meaning “500 words of absolute bullshit.”  Nonetheless, I knew every time I applied for a job, I had to send a copy of my resume to prospective employers before they placed it in the “file” (better known as the trash can). If I was lucky, I would be sent a generic e-mail stating “You have wonderful credentials (yeah, right), and will be considered for any future openings (but not in your lifetime, sucker).”

Afterward, I spent hours poring over the help-wanted ads listed on the Internet, and the classified sections in newspapers.  I was not fond of help-wanted ads because they seldom list jobs that people really want to do, such as playing in heavy metal bands, acting in avant-garde plays, or digging for artifacts in the Kalahari Desert. Instead, they incessantly list jobs like customer service representatives, telemarketers, burger flippers, mailroom clerks, warehouse pickers and packers--jobs that are notorious for terrible working conditions, meager pay, no fringe benefits, and perpetual employee turnover.

For example, I was hired in February 1998 for a lowly customer service position after it was in Louisville’s Courier-Journal for several weeks.  As my neck was being fricasseed by an overhead light, I had to maintain a pleasant demeanor while listening to complaints from churlish people. Once, I became involved in a shouting match with a d********g upset about an environmental fine; my supervisors subsequently reprimanded me for not acting “professionally.” Not surprisingly, I was overjoyed about submitting my letter of resignation a couple of months later. I knew if I was a customer service representative for a few more weeks, I would have vomited, and cursed like Linda Blair in The Exorcist before I was dragged off to the local insane asylum.

Another problem with the classifieds is the phenomenon of “blind ads”�"i.e., ads that provide a post office box or telephone numbers of companies without listing their actual physical addresses. Occasionally, blind ads can lead to legitimate jobs. I remember a story about a young man who got a public relations job with the Chicago Bulls a few years ago as a result of responding to a blind ad. However, I was always suspicious about a company that didn’t list its physical address, fearing there may be a scam or organized crime involvement.

In spite of these drawbacks, I couldn’t help but scrutinize the want ads because they conveniently furnish job openings. I prided myself as being a person who preferred doing things the easy, rather than the hard, way.

***

On the morning of October 12, I had planned to go to the unemployment office to complete forms for my compensation.  My wife shrieked, “Joe, you’re not going anywhere. Don’t you remember? We must clean the house. Mom and Dad’s sixtieth wedding anniversary celebration is coming up. There are going to be a whole bunch of people over here. Help me.”

Silently, I grabbed a rag, and started dusting the living room furniture.

In the afternoon, I went to Things Remembered to buy a silver platter as an anniversary gift.

“Hey, Sweetie,” I roared to my wife because I had a bad connection on my cell phone.  “What words do you want etched on this platter?”

“’Happy Sixtieth Anniversary’ would be fine. Oh, Joe, Joe, come home! There’s smoke in the house. We’ve got a fire. I’m calling the fire department. Mom and Dad are fine. . . .”

I hung up the phone and headed home. I couldn’t get into the driveway because there fire trucks were everywhere. So I went over to Big Lots for a half-hour, and I bought a phone card and some snacks. I was relieved the house didn’t suffer any damage from the fire. The Dismal Dungeon still looked as dismal as ever, and all my personal possessions were safe. My wife said the fire was caused when she cooked some food and forgot to turn off the stove.

Because of the tumult over the fire and my parents-in-law’s upcoming anniversary, I forgot a job fair was being held in southern Indiana.

I have attended a few job fairs in my lifetime. I found them useful for acquiring free stuff like pens, pencils, plastic bags, candy, and an occasional toy. As for finding a good job, well, that was another story.

The vast majority of jobs listed at fairs are the same low-paid, high-turnover positions constantly advertised in newspapers and on the Internet. Naturally, I avoided these jobs like the black plague.

Even worse, I found most of the interviewers were anything but Princes and Princesses Charming. They were not there to chitchat about every “p” and “q” of my work history for an hour or two. In fact, they frequently brushed me off by harrumphing, “Fill out a job application.” In career guides, job hunting experts would tell me I should have been happy I had made job contacts. But there was no way on God’s green earth I had enough courage to ask�"actually beg�"from someone who was less friendly than an executioner from the Spanish Inquisition. Maybe I was smart to forget about the job fair. It probably would have been less productive than spending an evening reading a philosophy textbook.

***

My parents-in-law’s sixtieth wedding anniversary celebration on October 15th was a smashing success. Nearly everyone from my wife’s family was there. We had great fun watching highlights of last year’s anniversary celebration at a restaurant in Louisville and a documentary detailing the history of my wife’s family. Four days later, I resumed the thankless task of looking for work. At the unemployment office, I experienced problems completing my compensation form because I couldn’t remember the answer to the security question I had used last year. I loitered around the office until l shouted, “Hey, can someone help me?” One of the customer service people responded, “All right.” She was not overjoyed about leaving her desk.

The customer service person explained that, to receive my unemployment compensation, I had to list names of employers I contacted via mail, phone calls, or the Internet until I find a job or exhaust all my benefits.  She encouraged me to come to the office all the time to utilize their job hunting services.

Using their computer, I noticed several websites were advertising for people to write magazine articles. I sent off several resumes, and hoped for the best.

In addition, I read stories on the Internet about talented, well-educated people who were once managers and business executives but now, thanks to the Great Recession, working in part-time, low-paying, dead-end McJobs. I was frightened I would find a job that was less prestigious, and lower paying than the ones I had held as a college student. I had nightmares of seeing myself saying such moronic phrases as, “Want some fries with that burger?” for the rest of my life.

***

I received a friendly e-mail from a temporary agency headhunter urging me to work as a warehouse picker-packer. Great, just what I always wanted to do�"move heavy boxes around at a frantic pace for $9 an hour. I tried to avoid menial factory jobs, especially warehouse work, not because they were “beneath” me, but due to the fact that I was a slow-paced oaf. I knew even in junior high school I would never be successful as a “factory rat” because I almost failed my industrial arts classes, thanks to my clumsiness.

I sent off several applications for office positions. One proved to be fruitful because I had a brief phone interview for a clerical opening in the east end of Louisville. I stuttered, trying to answer inane job-related questions about myself. Near the end, the woman on the phone cooed, “If my supervisors think your credentials are good enough, you will definitely have a face-to-face interview.”

Yeah, right.

I had to give the woman credit�"she was not a badass like most people conducting phone interviews.

One time when I picked up the phone, a man snarled, “This is Mike Charles. I’m the director of the Black Pebble Public Library. I’ve got your resume. Why do you want to work here?”

“Well . . . well,” I stammered. “Black Pebble is a nice community in Indiana.”

“You don’t have any experience working in public libraries.  I don’t think you will be successful working here.”

“But sir, but. . . .”

“And I don’t like your responses so far.”

“And I don’t like the way you are asking me questions.”

“Let’s talk about library work. What would you do if a patron asks you about bugs?”

 “I would check the card catalog and then look in the stacks for books . . . .” For the next minute or two, we had a pier-six shouting match until I slammed down the phone. Some years later, I received a call from an archivist in eastern Kentucky. I spent a minute or two answering generic job questions and describing my credentials when he huffed, “You’re not qualified for this job.”  Well, sorry, mister. I wouldn’t have bothered to send my resume to your archive if you wanted someone with superstar credentials.

Unquestionably, I will be overjoyed if I never have to endure another phone interview.

***

I didn’t bother to hunt for jobs during the final weekend of October because I was too busy helping my wife set up Halloween decorations. On Halloween night, Martin and his family visited.  His children looked spiffy in their costumes, and his girlfriend, Deena, looked like Morticia from The Addams Family. Meanwhile, I sulked in the Dismal Dungeon when I was not handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. I was upset because, for the past month, I had spent countless hours searching want ads, and I had yet to see a job that would make me exclaim, “Shazam, shazam! This is what I have always wanted to do since I was eating fish sticks in grade school.”  

I was mired in the depths of unemployment hell. And, I was slowly abandoning all hope.