I'm looking for work.
I'll qualify that. I'm looking for a simple, part time minimum wage job which doesn't involve scraping dried cheese from dishes while a stressed-out manager badgers me to stack, wash, and return approximately four-hundred plates within .03 seconds lest his restaurant go out of business for the denizens of customers who wouldn't have starved to death in that massive time span.
I'm also giving serious consideration to returning to grad school, if only to indulge in my favorite hobby: seeing how high I can take my student loan debt. The last time I did that, I rivaled Paraguay's gross national product and the value of the US dollar plunged by fifteen percent.
Why, then, do I keep shooting myself in the foot? By now I'm pretty sure that neither Kmart nor WalMart would hire me, not that I blame them for feeling that way after the messages I left their customer dissatisfaction escalation teams -comments which likely induced post-traumatic stress disorder in the unfortunate souls who answer the phones at corporate. Seriously, being carded simply for attempting to purchase household glue was ridiculous. I should never have mentioned to the cashier that it was for my Poodle. "Yeah, I can't get him to stay in the living room. Maybe Gorilla Glue will work. Perchance is it hypoallergenic? Because Dexter sheds very easily."
I had no idea a cashier's eyebrows could shoot so high.
I also want to stay away from any position involving cash registers. Not that I can't figure out how to operate one of those (I set speed records at the now-defunct Hill's Department Stores back in the 80s with nary a penny over- or undercharged), but because the thought of being chained in one small spot for an entire shift seems like being the corporate equivalent of a Wagyu cow. I'm a free range kind of employee. I worked at Habitat For Humanity's store for seven years. There were some things which I didn't like about the store, but at least I had the freedom to monitor the various departments and organize the merchandise. I walked three miles every day, approximately, while doing my job. There was something nice about getting to choose where in the store to work, even when that meant being stopped by customers who first observed the pricing gun in my hand and then asked if I worked there.
I've given serious consideration to doing volunteer work in the hopes that it might open a few doors. I can see it now: "Hey Rob, I love how you stacked those four thousand bags of oil dry compound. Very neat and precise. But next time, please use the stockroom. I can't get to my desk!" If nothing else, I'm known for my work ethic -when I work.
The next time I fill out an application, and the question "What type of experience do you have?" pops up, I'm going to reply with a couple of questions of my own. "Exactly how much experience should a successful candidate have regarding stocking merchandise so that the labels on those cans of green beans faces the customer?" and "Although I didn't declare a shelf-stocking major while pursuing my undergraduate degree, do you offer a nationally accredited testing program so that I can prove I know which way the DelMonte label goes?"
All of the above speaks of my experiences and, I'm sure, of tens of millions of other people who share similar plights. It's only a matter of when I find that job.
When I do, it'll apply.
I'll qualify that. I'm looking for a simple, part time minimum wage job which doesn't involve scraping dried cheese from dishes while a stressed-out manager badgers me to stack, wash, and return approximately four-hundred plates within .03 seconds lest his restaurant go out of business for the denizens of customers who wouldn't have starved to death in that massive time span.
I'm also giving serious consideration to returning to grad school, if only to indulge in my favorite hobby: seeing how high I can take my student loan debt. The last time I did that, I rivaled Paraguay's gross national product and the value of the US dollar plunged by fifteen percent.
Why, then, do I keep shooting myself in the foot? By now I'm pretty sure that neither Kmart nor WalMart would hire me, not that I blame them for feeling that way after the messages I left their customer dissatisfaction escalation teams -comments which likely induced post-traumatic stress disorder in the unfortunate souls who answer the phones at corporate. Seriously, being carded simply for attempting to purchase household glue was ridiculous. I should never have mentioned to the cashier that it was for my Poodle. "Yeah, I can't get him to stay in the living room. Maybe Gorilla Glue will work. Perchance is it hypoallergenic? Because Dexter sheds very easily."
I had no idea a cashier's eyebrows could shoot so high.
I also want to stay away from any position involving cash registers. Not that I can't figure out how to operate one of those (I set speed records at the now-defunct Hill's Department Stores back in the 80s with nary a penny over- or undercharged), but because the thought of being chained in one small spot for an entire shift seems like being the corporate equivalent of a Wagyu cow. I'm a free range kind of employee. I worked at Habitat For Humanity's store for seven years. There were some things which I didn't like about the store, but at least I had the freedom to monitor the various departments and organize the merchandise. I walked three miles every day, approximately, while doing my job. There was something nice about getting to choose where in the store to work, even when that meant being stopped by customers who first observed the pricing gun in my hand and then asked if I worked there.
I've given serious consideration to doing volunteer work in the hopes that it might open a few doors. I can see it now: "Hey Rob, I love how you stacked those four thousand bags of oil dry compound. Very neat and precise. But next time, please use the stockroom. I can't get to my desk!" If nothing else, I'm known for my work ethic -when I work.
The next time I fill out an application, and the question "What type of experience do you have?" pops up, I'm going to reply with a couple of questions of my own. "Exactly how much experience should a successful candidate have regarding stocking merchandise so that the labels on those cans of green beans faces the customer?" and "Although I didn't declare a shelf-stocking major while pursuing my undergraduate degree, do you offer a nationally accredited testing program so that I can prove I know which way the DelMonte label goes?"
All of the above speaks of my experiences and, I'm sure, of tens of millions of other people who share similar plights. It's only a matter of when I find that job.
When I do, it'll apply.
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