Well, I am now officially a member of the unaccounted for 99% of Americans looking for work. I give. I'm done. It's finished. I am no longer a statistic because I cannot be counted anymore. I've done my best, but it has become brutally apparent to me that my best just isn't good enough. At least not good enough for the kind of work I am able to do.
I've written extensively on this subject, chronicling my journey from its inception back in February of 2011 to the interview that cracked my spirit and left hope in the dust. I am human. I can no longer fight economic circumstances in this country and in my home state. I can no longer face another owner and/or manager who calls me in not for my expertise but to mine the employment pool for back-up. It's happened repeatedly, and my psyche has been waylaid. Since I have zero control over man's will, there is no way I can continue to present myself for what appear to be perfect fits for the position I am applying only to be rejected out of hand by silence.
For the 17+ years I worked as a legal assistant we used to use the phrase “Silence deems ______________ (fill in the blank with admission, rejection, acceptance, etc.)” to avoid unnecessary communications and/or to confirm negotiations, settlement terms/offers, or to solidify our next move. In the service industry, in which I have been working for the last 17+ years, that phrase translates to rejection, period. Not even a courtesy contact. Nothing. It's demeaning.
My primary focus for the last 2½ years has been looking for a position with an income that would sustain me financially. Shouldn't be that difficult given my years and years of interactive experience, right? Wrong.
The circumstances in play at the job I left mid-February 2011 were such that my only choice was to leave. I can't say they left me “no choice” because there's always a choice. It's just that the options that were laid out for me were not only morally and ethically unacceptable but downright illegal. I made a decent and comfortable living there, and I didn't want to leave; however, without the blessing (as it were) and support of the owners and managers the choice that was left was to go. So I did.
On my last day, the owner took me aside and with tears in her eyes said that she wished she had the guts to leave. My heart hurt for her as I had been made privy to her private life from the get-go, but at the same time the solution to both our situations was so blatantly simple, it was difficult for me to sustain any real empathy or compassion for her predicament.
The first couple of weeks I did my best to just relax as I had been working in a pressure cooker for close to a year. Didn't start out that way, but hell hath no fury like a drunk that's been cut off from his/her elixir!!
After that I hit the streets running. I'll spare all the details as I'm sure anyone in this situation is fully aware of the full-time attention required for a jobless job search. I will say that I answered every ad that contained even one requirement for my experience, tailored each and every resume I sent out to the specifics of the job solicitation, drove hundreds of miles to drop of resumes from ads that required “in person only” submissions (only to discover that the person on duty knew nothing about the ad), waded through umpteen “open” interviews (which I refer to as “cattle calls”), sent follow-up letters, sent out mass-mailings to alert any prospective bar and/or restaurant owner of my availability. I even put together a photo flyer as so many of the ads requested a photo. Shady and definitely on the fringe of illegal but with the market so flooded with potential employees, employers could (and still can) pretty much do whatever they want to find the “right” fit.
I was so busy searching for work, I didn't start to panic until I realized it had been six (6) months since I became unemployed, and the call-backs were becoming few and far between. Gratefully, working in a tip-based industry as an adult did prepare me for the possibility of unemployment. I always lived by my own hard-lived motto “save when there's a feast so you can eat when there's a famine”, so financially I was still stable.
Ultimately a year passed and I was still unemployed facing impossible Catch 22 developments; i.e., no potential employer would call for an interview if you were unemployed. How the f&*k does THAT work? Apparently quite well. Weeks would go by without a single call back. I started desperately looking for work in other areas. There HAD to be someone out there that would hire me. I became frantic in my search and doubled my efforts to secure a job. I was willing to do just about anything by the end of 2011, and applied for positions all over the economic spectrum, inside and outside of the service industry.
More than most gratefully, I was contacted by the owner of a club that I left at the end of 2009 (for reasons too personal and irrelevant to this writing) in February of 2012. She asked if I would be willing to return on a part-time basis … that nothing had been the same since I left, etc., etc., etc. I jumped at that opportunity and have been working there again for over a year and a half now. I love the job. I love my employers. I couldn't be happier to be working steadily and have a regular income.
Now the rub. The job is about 15 hours a week. That's it. Since my return, I have continued to search feverishly for a second (or even a third, fourth) job. Again, my primary focus has been about securing a supplemental income. I kept up the pace with my search, and was actually called in for a number of interviews but left knowing I would not get the position (another story for another time).
Still with the industry well so deep with potential employees, employers have the luxury of establishing nearly impossible requirements such as open availability (which translates to one cannot be working elsewhere), any shift, any day, any weekend, any holiday (none of which were objectionable to me) … even gender specificity!
The new Catch 22 became that employers wouldn't call you if you DID have a job! It's just insanity, and it wears on the soul and the spirit. I am nothing if not persistent, though, and I kept up the pursuit.
The last interview is the one that blew my circuitry. It was a brand new club that had replaced a run down karaoke bar, and it was directly across the street from the club at which I work. I had applied for a bartending position but never heard back. Then I saw an ad for a weekend night bar manager. The description felt so tailor made to my skill set and the direction I would like to take my career; not to mention that the committed days were a perfect dove-tail to my current schedule. As required, I dropped off my resume on a Thursday after work not harboring even a glimmer of hope that I would get a call back.
Much to my delight and great surprise, I DID get a call back the very next day. I was elated! I called to confirm the message left for an interview that following Monday at 2:00 p.m. I was a nervous wreck all weekend as I walked that fine line between hope and expectation … not that I expected to get the job … only that it was hard not to write the script for a perfectly perfect outcome and my future potential as a fully employed, self-sufficient person, doing what I love to do best.
On Monday, I laid out my “interview” clothes and this time even opted to wear heels. Granted, I only own one pair, and they're low square heeled shoes, but given that I haven't worn anything but work shoes (on and off the job) for the last at least 15 years, this was a big deal for me! I gave myself extra time to find parking as I did not want to park in the lot where I work even though it's across the street. Even though my employers are fully aware that I have continued to look for additional work and/or even full time employment elsewhere, I wanted to keep everything separate.
When I arrived, the hostess had no idea why I was there. Not a good omen. She called someone in the back while I sat and talked with another applicant. The person who emerged from the back came out eating a sandwich. He was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt … hardly appropriate for interviewing prospective managers (or at least that was my first thought).
His confusion was apparent. He hadn't a clue as to what was going on, so he just asked “Who's first?”. I opted to wait for the second slot. The first interview was short, and I was up next. This man did not even have my resume. In fact he had no paperwork whatsoever. He called someone to bring him an espresso (not my paperwork and references) and did not bother to offer me anything.
I had a copy of my information with me and offered it to him while we waited for his coffee. His next words were “Oh, I see you work across the street … I thought Robbie was the manager there.” As soon as he uttered Robbie's name, my heart sank and any hope I did have deflated in an instant. It's the same story I'd come up against twice before: I was not called in for anything remotely connected to my expertise. I was called in to find out what was going on at my club.
Each of these men either knew the owner of the club where I work or knew the manager … wanted to shoot the shit with me about their relationship, but also tried to slyly inquire as to how the club was performing. Worse yet, all three (3) of these men had no intention of hiring me, either. In fact, before we got down to what might be considered an interview, they told me that they had already hired someone for the position for which I had applied. ALREADY HIRED SOMEONE!
Clearly, my time was worth nothing to any of them which seemed to rubber stamp what I had long ago begun to suspect ... I really am worthless.
I don't know why it astonished me so, but I was so taken aback I became robotic. I did sit through the lame attempt at a interview (assuring me that if things didn't work out they'd be sure to give me a call) and had to do my level best not to let him know exactly what I thought of him. So humiliating and just flat out 'effed up. I had to ask myself with all due diligence, how much rejection can one person take? How much rejection SHOULD one person take?
I left feeling not just broken, but used up. I didn't even have it in me to cry. My resignation was complete. I knew in that moment that if I did not switch my focus to other things I would just snap. Just snap.
The final nail? Since my purported interview, the same ad has been re-posted on three (3) separate websites for job listings. How does one NOT take that personally?
SO, I have turned my attention to writing. Stream of consciousness. Nothing more … and on a Selectric II Typewriter no less! At least an hour every day. I'm loving it thus far, but the reality remains that it's not going to make my mortgage payment or buy my groceries.
I've exhausted every possible avenue in my search for additional work. There's not much more I can do at this point (at least not without losing my sanity in the process). I've racked my brain to find the answer to “How am I supposed to know when I'm being presented with a challenge versus hitting a destined dead end?”. So far said answer remains illusive.
I suspect that the bottom line becomes one of faith, trust and my relationship with the God of my understanding. (Clearly I don't understand him/her much.) Yet one more time, either the Universe has my back or it doesn't.
I guess this time I'll see it when I believe it. Such a bitch.
