Getting a job

Why is it so frakkin’ difficult to get a job, or even an interview, here? It’s not like I don’t try, daily, to secure employment. The structure of the spa industry here is much different than LA. In LA, you are an employee; they schedule stuff for you, you show up, do the work, they pay you. Or you have your own place. Simple. Here, in a town glutted with “spa” businesses, there are 4 places where you can be an employee. Two, I have worked at, briefly. The other two have no openings, and haven’t for 9 months. Everyplace else is booth rental, and booth rental is a money pit unless you already have a clientele, which I do not.

 

” Think outside the box”. ok. I have applied everywhere, with the exception of fast food places. Ralph’s, Safeway, Holiday market, the local organic store. Macy’s, Sears, OSH, Home Depot, Kohl’s. All the framing shops in town. RiteAid, Walgreens, Ross, CostPlus, a local coffehouse. All these places were hiring, I got a couple interviews, but no job offer. As for fast food, it is difficult to contemplate working in an industry that I think is unhealthy and exploitive. I thought about prostitution for about 8 seconds. One guy told me that I am “overqualified” for a retail position, that they would rather hire someone out of high school than someone with my experience because high-schoolers are “easier to train”. Read: easier to manipulate and take advantage of.

 

And then there are all the uplifting stories on google news and the NY Times. It is all ominously familiar. Unemployment has risen for the 6th consecutive month, new construction coming to a stand still, the housing slump, the mortgage crisis, the cost of food and transportation going up. I have noticed that the commercials on the radio are leaning heavily on debt resolution services. A couple nights ago, I watched a clip of George Carlin (R.I.P. dude), his dead-on “stuff” riff, from the mid-70’s. In it, he mentions 18% credit card rates, which is where we are now, again. I was 10 in 1976. I remember Carter, waiting in long lines at the gas station every other day, Trix cereal going from 1.29 to 2.19 seemingly overnight. I remember the drought, and the dead yellow lawn, and the local swimming pool closing. I remember the day it hit 112 in Concord, a record, a day so hot that all I could do was lay on the red plaid couch and try to read, feeling the sweat from my bent knee drip down the back of my pudgy thigh. I used to lay in bed with  my mom and watch the evening news, the somber faces relating the latest statistics on the economic crisis. I remember the worry on my mom’s face as she sat hunched over the checkbook and the stack of bills. And how she always smiled and hugged me and said “No sweetie, everything is fine” when I asked her if things were OK.

 

And here we are again. This time though, I don’t have the mental protection of being 10. I am forty-two now, the same age as my mother in those long ago times. And now it is my turn to be responsible for her, to hunch over the checkbook, or computer, and look worried as I pay the bills.  She is wise, she doesn’t ask if things are OK. She places her hand on the top of my head, gently, and runs it down, slowly, to the nape of my neck, giving the only comfort she able to give; love and understanding.