Within minutes we were standing at the Number One bus stop and Mike proceeded to enjoy a quick smoke like a junkie savoring a speedball. Eventually a bus came by bearing the rush hour crowd packed like lemmings into this, the transportational equivalent of a Vietnamese Tiger Cage on wheels.
Anyone with experience on the bus knows full well that with those god-damned overhead pull down windows, things remain ventilated only as long as the vehicle keeps moving. When the driver plays "hurry up and wait" at a stop during the hottest day of July with a full load aboard things swiftly become intolerable.
First, with one communal deep breath, all the Grade "A" Prime oxygen is GONE! Then, invariably, there are at least a half-dozen people on board that have only a sketchy knowledge of deodorant's existence and/or just don't use it because:
(1) IT'S AGAINST MY RELIGION
(2) THE ALUMINUM GIVES YOU ALZHEIMER'S
(3) I BELIEVE IN A SCENT-FREE ENVIRONMENT
Lemme tell you, folks, speaking as someone who actually has chemical sensitivities, I would rather risk a full-blown asthmatic fit then inhale some else's "stank".
Finally there comes the stifling heat. Men sweat, women sweat, seniors who routinely have their thermostats up on bust in August sweat, babies sweat, the metal and glass works sweat. Everybody sweats. It's one big sweat-fest. I wouldn't doubt that when the buses arrive back at Metro Transit headquarters in Dartmouth some poor bastard who draws the short straw has to go in and squeegee the floors down. Eeeeeewwww....
Anyhoo, there we are, me and Mikey. The bus is so packed we can't get a seat together, so we're left sitting across from one another in the aisle seats. We're leaning away from out moist and smelly seat-mates out into relatively free air. Since you would have been hard pressed to fit the kit bag in the back of a half-ton U-Haul let alone under a standard issue bus seat, it sits out in the narrow aisle like a bloated alligator carcass. New passengers are forced to crawl over it to get to the back of the bus and begin shooting us looks so dirty it could strip the paint off a battleship.
"So, Mike, c'mon, man! Lemme know what we're selling," I ask as the bus begins to move, mercifully taking on some air.
He looks remotely defeated then reaches down and unzips the bag. With all the gravity of the situation, I expect to finally discover just what that blindingly shiny thing was in the trunk of the "Repo Man" car or the "Pulp Fiction" briefcase.
Instead the contents of the satchel, now revealed before the hyperventilating masses, looks terribly innocuous. Everyone within line of sight leans forward like a council of witch doctors seeking divination in the spilt innards of a gazelle.
The bag contains many shrink-wrapped articles of baby clothing. Disney-themed pastel blue and pink sleepers, bibs bearing the image of a larval-stage Mickey Mouse and a batch of what I like to refer to as "chew toys" (soothers, pacifiers, et al).
To their credit the items didn't look like cheap Korean-made knock-offs that would spontaneously combust if exposed to direct sunlight. They looked pretty genuine. Since it seemed to me that Mike and Company didn't exactly look like Eisner-approved official distributors of "Little Mermaid" merchandise, wilds thoughts began to course through my head. Images of the Marketeers dressed in commando gear hanging out on the shoulder of the TCH constructing elaborate transport truck derailment tactics, then swarming over the wreck like Oprah on a turkey burger, carting off as much of the misbegotten wares before a Disney Rescue Rangers team could arrive on the scene to shoo them away.
Every rational thought told me right then and there to pull the cord and get off. Before going downtown the bus would take me very close to the Casa Del Slacker. Within minutes I could be sitting on the side porch with my friends during peak skin cancer hours engaging in witty parlance like:
"Man, you look really red. Do I look red?"
"Your pretty red, man, but I think I'm a lot redder than you."
But something prevents me from acting as the bus intersects Chebucto Road and keeps on truckin'. Perhaps it's my unwillingness to go back and tell my friends of yet another crushing defeat. Perhaps it's the unquestioning, mindless work ethic beaten into my head by my parents with that classic Maritime mantra: "You should be lucky to have a job...You should be lucky to have a job... You should be lucky to have a job."
But looking back on it I thinks it's just much more likely that I had nothing better to do that day, and, at the very least, this little misadventure would at the very least result in a "You'll look back on this one day and L-A-A-A-A-U-G-H!" kinda story.
I'm also glad I stayed, Gentle Reader, 'cuz this one's a dilly.
EPIC: http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/south-park/#clip147747
FAIL: http://www.weirdotoys.com/2009/06/28/disney-overtakes-earth-next-cybertron/
Showing posts with label bad jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad jobs. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Lowered Expectations : Part III
Hello, Gentle Reader.
Welcome to Part III of "Lowered Expectations" wherein young Master David learns more than he cares to know about his new overseer and a mere pittance about the immediate task at hand. Return with us now to that Dickensian warehouse back in 1994...
(And for the love of Ashley Dupre if you haven't read the first two parts go back and read them first or this is gonna make even less sense than normal).
"This is Lucinda," Mike panted, the back of his hand trying to wipe away the hot pink lipstick that gave him the appearance of a prepubescent clown.
His "old woman" (winner, as I recall, of the MTV "Most Literal Ironic Reference Award" for 1994) looked vaguely dazed and ignored the condition of her own makeup.
I was unwilling to get close enough to test my hypothesis but I surmised that Lucinda smelled like a combination of "White Shoulders" perfume and beached haddock. She looked more oblivious than the trainees, as if she'd been fired from her job as a professional barfly and had been abducted by this roving band of misfits in some sort of marketing-themed Stockholm syndrome.
This line of reasoning finally brought me back to reality. A logical question finally muscled through a crowd of jumbled thoughts to stand at the forefront, jumping up and down and waving enough to land imaginary aircraft.
"Uh, what do we actually...market," I heard myself ask.
Mike was about to launch into his own personal tale of true love but now turned to regard me with contempt for having the audacity to ask about what I was actually doing there. I was starting to get the distinct impression that he was being less than forthcoming about the nature of the business. After taking another decadent drag on Lucinda's face he physically turned her around and gave her a gentle push back into the crowd.
"Talk to you later, babe," he said and then waved to her which she promptly failed to notice.
"I'll see you at three!" he shouted through cupped hands.
He turned to me and smiled, touching the cigarette package in his pocket again like it was a piece of Cross.
"See, man, that's another great thing about this job. You don't have to work a stiff eight hour day like a sucker."
He took me over to a spot in the warehouse where a massive green duffel bag sat waiting for him. With a Herculean effort he managed to lug it back into the middle of the room where the group was beginning to coalesce.
"Hey, do you have bus fare?" he demanded abruptly.
I was so busy seeking solidarity in the faces of the other new hires that I didn't hear.
"Oh, I'm sorry. What did you say?"
Mike sighed heavily, clearly pained by the prospects of being saddled with a helpless noob.
"Do you have a buck thirty for the bus?"
I obediently turned my pockets inside out.
"Uh, yeah, I think so..."
Mike's reply was cut short by the clarion shriek of the once-innocuous secretary. Her banshee cry instantly neutered any peripheral conversation.
"Alright, people! We got a nice day out there weather-wise and we're coming through with some good stuff this week so I expect a lot of good news by the end of the day. Come up here for your assignments and get out there and do it!"
I stood there slack-jawed. The once-pretty, amicable secretary had morphed into "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S." right before my eyes. Mike got in line with the rest of the veterans and soon returned looking almost relieved.
"We pulled a good one, man!" he enthused. "Wyse Road, right across the bridge in Dartmouth."
"That's...good?" I asked.
"Sure, man. There's plenty of businesses right there just as soon as you get off the bus. People are generally pretty civil there as well..."
Now fully transformed by a lycanthropic curse of greed "Ilsa" produced a portable stereo and jabbed the "PLAY" button. At once, the warehouse was filled with the haunting strains of John Parr's excremental "Man in Motion" at a Spinal-Tappian level of volume.
"Alright people!" she screamed, "You all got your assignments. Now get out there and kick some ass!"
The "Marketeer Club" suddenly joined together, linked hands and spontaneously cheered. The rest of the newbies stood back a healthy distance, exchanging worried glances and trying to look for an obvious exit that didn't involve trying to sneak by the scary blond warden.
CONTINUED IN PART IV...where it is revealed to young master David the nature of what is to be marketed and of nearly equal import: how this is to be done. Join us in under twenty-four hours for the next thrilling installment of "Lowered Expectations" on "You Can't Get There From Here" theater.
EPIC: *WARNING* Not work appropriate! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06e3PvPEmQ
FAIL: http://www.spike.com/video/john-parr-st-elmos/2789596
Welcome to Part III of "Lowered Expectations" wherein young Master David learns more than he cares to know about his new overseer and a mere pittance about the immediate task at hand. Return with us now to that Dickensian warehouse back in 1994...
(And for the love of Ashley Dupre if you haven't read the first two parts go back and read them first or this is gonna make even less sense than normal).
"This is Lucinda," Mike panted, the back of his hand trying to wipe away the hot pink lipstick that gave him the appearance of a prepubescent clown.
His "old woman" (winner, as I recall, of the MTV "Most Literal Ironic Reference Award" for 1994) looked vaguely dazed and ignored the condition of her own makeup.
I was unwilling to get close enough to test my hypothesis but I surmised that Lucinda smelled like a combination of "White Shoulders" perfume and beached haddock. She looked more oblivious than the trainees, as if she'd been fired from her job as a professional barfly and had been abducted by this roving band of misfits in some sort of marketing-themed Stockholm syndrome.
This line of reasoning finally brought me back to reality. A logical question finally muscled through a crowd of jumbled thoughts to stand at the forefront, jumping up and down and waving enough to land imaginary aircraft.
"Uh, what do we actually...market," I heard myself ask.
Mike was about to launch into his own personal tale of true love but now turned to regard me with contempt for having the audacity to ask about what I was actually doing there. I was starting to get the distinct impression that he was being less than forthcoming about the nature of the business. After taking another decadent drag on Lucinda's face he physically turned her around and gave her a gentle push back into the crowd.
"Talk to you later, babe," he said and then waved to her which she promptly failed to notice.
"I'll see you at three!" he shouted through cupped hands.
He turned to me and smiled, touching the cigarette package in his pocket again like it was a piece of Cross.
"See, man, that's another great thing about this job. You don't have to work a stiff eight hour day like a sucker."
He took me over to a spot in the warehouse where a massive green duffel bag sat waiting for him. With a Herculean effort he managed to lug it back into the middle of the room where the group was beginning to coalesce.
"Hey, do you have bus fare?" he demanded abruptly.
I was so busy seeking solidarity in the faces of the other new hires that I didn't hear.
"Oh, I'm sorry. What did you say?"
Mike sighed heavily, clearly pained by the prospects of being saddled with a helpless noob.
"Do you have a buck thirty for the bus?"
I obediently turned my pockets inside out.
"Uh, yeah, I think so..."
Mike's reply was cut short by the clarion shriek of the once-innocuous secretary. Her banshee cry instantly neutered any peripheral conversation.
"Alright, people! We got a nice day out there weather-wise and we're coming through with some good stuff this week so I expect a lot of good news by the end of the day. Come up here for your assignments and get out there and do it!"
I stood there slack-jawed. The once-pretty, amicable secretary had morphed into "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S." right before my eyes. Mike got in line with the rest of the veterans and soon returned looking almost relieved.
"We pulled a good one, man!" he enthused. "Wyse Road, right across the bridge in Dartmouth."
"That's...good?" I asked.
"Sure, man. There's plenty of businesses right there just as soon as you get off the bus. People are generally pretty civil there as well..."
Now fully transformed by a lycanthropic curse of greed "Ilsa" produced a portable stereo and jabbed the "PLAY" button. At once, the warehouse was filled with the haunting strains of John Parr's excremental "Man in Motion" at a Spinal-Tappian level of volume.
"Alright people!" she screamed, "You all got your assignments. Now get out there and kick some ass!"
The "Marketeer Club" suddenly joined together, linked hands and spontaneously cheered. The rest of the newbies stood back a healthy distance, exchanging worried glances and trying to look for an obvious exit that didn't involve trying to sneak by the scary blond warden.
CONTINUED IN PART IV...where it is revealed to young master David the nature of what is to be marketed and of nearly equal import: how this is to be done. Join us in under twenty-four hours for the next thrilling installment of "Lowered Expectations" on "You Can't Get There From Here" theater.
EPIC: *WARNING* Not work appropriate! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06e3PvPEmQ
FAIL: http://www.spike.com/video/john-parr-st-elmos/2789596
Monday, April 12, 2010
Lowered Expectations : Part II
My next venture was with a self-described "Marketing Firm" that had a "warehouse" just off Windsor Street in Halifax. When I went there to apply in person as per the want ad's request I discovered that the "warehouse" resembled an ancient, rural service station grafted onto our reality from Dog River. The office portion looked like a prefab structure, its sky-blue siding in direct collision with the weathered dark-green clapboard on the "warehouse".
The interior of the office was unnaturally bright and spacious, obviously using the same dimensional technology responsible for Dr. Who's Tardis. It came complete with pastel walls, a prerequisite file cabinet, some chairs by a coffee table bearing stale magazines and one standard-issue secretary who at face value appeared to be both friendly and professional.
"Hi! How are you this morning?" she gushed as I entered the office. "Are you here to apply for the marketing job? Great! I just need you to fill out this application form for me... "
A pen, a clipboard and a rictus smile were fired at me in quick succession. Impressed by the rigorous selection process thus far, I attacked the paperwork with gusto, trying to justify their inherent faith in me.
A few hopeful co-applicants surrounded me, hunched over in their high-backed chairs over the disproportionately short coffee table. We looked like a bunch of yuppie larvae swarming over our first introductory line of cocaine.
I didn't leave so much as a square millimeter of the form blank. I proudly handed the effort back to the still-grinning mannequin and silently hoped that my labors where fruitful as I left.
Well, my labors must have been on friggin' Miracle-Gro because by the time I got back to the commune my bitter friend told me:
"Some marketing place called and they wanted me to tell you that you start tomorrow. What am I, anyway? Everybody's goddamn secretary?!"
Wow. Just like that I was about to begin a career in marketing. Sounded classy. I was a marketer. Or was I a marketeer? I reasoned that this would likely be my first question. After all, I would now be paid to market things. What exactly would I market? Surely something market-esque, market-like or something predisposed to being marketed. Next morning I assumed my identity as BUSINESS CASUAL MAN and reported to my new job at 8:45 am sharp.
It was a beautiful summer day with a warm breeze, making the full, heavy trees undulate hypnotically around me. I swerved off of Windsor Street and entered my new workplace with with vigor and enthusiasm.
Like a bad episode of "Three's Company" (or more like a really bad episode of "Three's Company") the formally docile secretary appeared from out of nowhere behind me and began to steer me towards the door to the warehouse.
"Hi! Nice to see you this morning! They're all getting ready out in the warehouse, so if I could just get you to step out here..."
In retrospect I think she was actually hiding behind the door when I came in. She rushed me out of there as if Mr. Roper was about to burst in with a sawed-off shotgun looking for anyone vaguely resembling Jack Tripper.
"Chrissy" slammed the door behind us then began steering me deep inside this structure which was beginning to look more and more like a mausoleum for deceased farm equipment. My original appraisal was proving to be painfully accurate: this was an abandoned service station.
In fact the small clutch of people we approached were wedged in between two emaciated antique cars that had been lured in here eons ago with promises of service and repair and then locked up to starve to death.
The motley gathering also looked as if this was their permanent residence as well. Most were in their late teens/early twenties with a few dramatic exceptions just to skew the average. Their only common bond: the illusion of formality. At a glance they reminded me of a bunch of motivational speakers who had their collective riverside vans re-possessed and were now squatting together in this abandoned building. Perhaps some enterprising chap had stumbled upon their illegal occupancy and was forcing them to engage in some clandestine operation as if they were migrant workers.
"Mike, get over here. This one's with you," the secretary grunted. Was this formally angelic creature the master of these marketing thimbots?
"Hey, bud, how's it goin'?" Mike replied, sporting the most fraudulent smile I'd ever seen pasted on another human being's face.
He looked back at the group of veterans with a knowing smile which was instantly mirrored back. He had the posture of someone who'd just drawn a lifetime of perpetual jury duty.
My new marketing partner looked no older than seventeen. He was slight, clad in a white shirt so wrinkled it looked like crepe paper. All of his grooming efforts seemed to have been channeled into maintaining his hair, which was a perfectly calibrated Conan O'Brien-esque side-sweep. His hands were so discolored by nicotine stains it looked as if he's placed his hands in the "Hollywood Walk of Orange Food Coloring".
"Do you like to travel?" he asked, fingering the outline of a cigarette pack in his shirt pocket.
"Uh, yeah," I responded, despite the fact that I was preoccupied looking for hidden cameras.
"Oh, man, then you're really gonna love this job. We don't just sell stuff here in Halifax."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we get to go on road trips! In fact a bunch of us just got back from the Island."
Considering the scale of the operation I'd witnessed thus far I assumed he wasn't referring to one of the Cayman Islands.
"F#@& man, what a time we had! Before we left the city we stopped in at the Cold Beer store. By the time we got to the ferry every one of us was hammered, except for Lynn 'cuz she was driving."
"Wow, fascinating."
"The only thing that kinda sucks is that you gotta share the hotel room with four or five people but even that's not so bad since you save so much money!"
My head was now swimming in a sea of Dali-level surreality.
"It's a wicked job, though, man. You make your own hours and if you got the knack you can really make a !#@%in' mint! I've been doin' real good lately. Me and my old lady are gonna get married just as soon as I got enough money put aside."
My trainer made eye contact across the warehouse with a vaguely elderly-looking woman who's own new trainee had already fled from sight. She beetled her way through the close quarters and Mike met her halfway in a bizarre parody of "Endless Love".
They embraced and kissed. I can distinctly remember feeling as if I was the sole witness to a grievously illegal act. I looked around desperately for some solidarity but could only see a clutch of seasoned marketeers psyching themselves up like Vikings chewing on the edge of their shields.
The few new hires like myself that still remained watched this display like there were mongoose (mongeese?) trying to figure out why...the cobra...was swaying...back and forth...so...hypnotically.
I had to face it. I was terribly alone.
CONTINUED IN PART III
EPIC: http://watch.ctv.ca/mad-men/season-2/mad-men-ep-201-for-those-who-think-young/#clip57865
FAIL: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/marketing/marketers_target_kids.cfm
The interior of the office was unnaturally bright and spacious, obviously using the same dimensional technology responsible for Dr. Who's Tardis. It came complete with pastel walls, a prerequisite file cabinet, some chairs by a coffee table bearing stale magazines and one standard-issue secretary who at face value appeared to be both friendly and professional.
"Hi! How are you this morning?" she gushed as I entered the office. "Are you here to apply for the marketing job? Great! I just need you to fill out this application form for me... "
A pen, a clipboard and a rictus smile were fired at me in quick succession. Impressed by the rigorous selection process thus far, I attacked the paperwork with gusto, trying to justify their inherent faith in me.
A few hopeful co-applicants surrounded me, hunched over in their high-backed chairs over the disproportionately short coffee table. We looked like a bunch of yuppie larvae swarming over our first introductory line of cocaine.
I didn't leave so much as a square millimeter of the form blank. I proudly handed the effort back to the still-grinning mannequin and silently hoped that my labors where fruitful as I left.
Well, my labors must have been on friggin' Miracle-Gro because by the time I got back to the commune my bitter friend told me:
"Some marketing place called and they wanted me to tell you that you start tomorrow. What am I, anyway? Everybody's goddamn secretary?!"
Wow. Just like that I was about to begin a career in marketing. Sounded classy. I was a marketer. Or was I a marketeer? I reasoned that this would likely be my first question. After all, I would now be paid to market things. What exactly would I market? Surely something market-esque, market-like or something predisposed to being marketed. Next morning I assumed my identity as BUSINESS CASUAL MAN and reported to my new job at 8:45 am sharp.
It was a beautiful summer day with a warm breeze, making the full, heavy trees undulate hypnotically around me. I swerved off of Windsor Street and entered my new workplace with with vigor and enthusiasm.
Like a bad episode of "Three's Company" (or more like a really bad episode of "Three's Company") the formally docile secretary appeared from out of nowhere behind me and began to steer me towards the door to the warehouse.
"Hi! Nice to see you this morning! They're all getting ready out in the warehouse, so if I could just get you to step out here..."
In retrospect I think she was actually hiding behind the door when I came in. She rushed me out of there as if Mr. Roper was about to burst in with a sawed-off shotgun looking for anyone vaguely resembling Jack Tripper.
"Chrissy" slammed the door behind us then began steering me deep inside this structure which was beginning to look more and more like a mausoleum for deceased farm equipment. My original appraisal was proving to be painfully accurate: this was an abandoned service station.
In fact the small clutch of people we approached were wedged in between two emaciated antique cars that had been lured in here eons ago with promises of service and repair and then locked up to starve to death.
The motley gathering also looked as if this was their permanent residence as well. Most were in their late teens/early twenties with a few dramatic exceptions just to skew the average. Their only common bond: the illusion of formality. At a glance they reminded me of a bunch of motivational speakers who had their collective riverside vans re-possessed and were now squatting together in this abandoned building. Perhaps some enterprising chap had stumbled upon their illegal occupancy and was forcing them to engage in some clandestine operation as if they were migrant workers.
"Mike, get over here. This one's with you," the secretary grunted. Was this formally angelic creature the master of these marketing thimbots?
"Hey, bud, how's it goin'?" Mike replied, sporting the most fraudulent smile I'd ever seen pasted on another human being's face.
He looked back at the group of veterans with a knowing smile which was instantly mirrored back. He had the posture of someone who'd just drawn a lifetime of perpetual jury duty.
My new marketing partner looked no older than seventeen. He was slight, clad in a white shirt so wrinkled it looked like crepe paper. All of his grooming efforts seemed to have been channeled into maintaining his hair, which was a perfectly calibrated Conan O'Brien-esque side-sweep. His hands were so discolored by nicotine stains it looked as if he's placed his hands in the "Hollywood Walk of Orange Food Coloring".
"Do you like to travel?" he asked, fingering the outline of a cigarette pack in his shirt pocket.
"Uh, yeah," I responded, despite the fact that I was preoccupied looking for hidden cameras.
"Oh, man, then you're really gonna love this job. We don't just sell stuff here in Halifax."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we get to go on road trips! In fact a bunch of us just got back from the Island."
Considering the scale of the operation I'd witnessed thus far I assumed he wasn't referring to one of the Cayman Islands.
"F#@& man, what a time we had! Before we left the city we stopped in at the Cold Beer store. By the time we got to the ferry every one of us was hammered, except for Lynn 'cuz she was driving."
"Wow, fascinating."
"The only thing that kinda sucks is that you gotta share the hotel room with four or five people but even that's not so bad since you save so much money!"
My head was now swimming in a sea of Dali-level surreality.
"It's a wicked job, though, man. You make your own hours and if you got the knack you can really make a !#@%in' mint! I've been doin' real good lately. Me and my old lady are gonna get married just as soon as I got enough money put aside."
My trainer made eye contact across the warehouse with a vaguely elderly-looking woman who's own new trainee had already fled from sight. She beetled her way through the close quarters and Mike met her halfway in a bizarre parody of "Endless Love".
They embraced and kissed. I can distinctly remember feeling as if I was the sole witness to a grievously illegal act. I looked around desperately for some solidarity but could only see a clutch of seasoned marketeers psyching themselves up like Vikings chewing on the edge of their shields.
The few new hires like myself that still remained watched this display like there were mongoose (mongeese?) trying to figure out why...the cobra...was swaying...back and forth...so...hypnotically.
I had to face it. I was terribly alone.
CONTINUED IN PART III
EPIC: http://watch.ctv.ca/mad-men/season-2/mad-men-ep-201-for-those-who-think-young/#clip57865
FAIL: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/marketing/marketers_target_kids.cfm
Friday, April 9, 2010
Lowered Expectations: Part I
Greetings, Gentle Reader.
'Tis that magical season when a student's thoughts turn invariably to summer employment. Many make an effort to look for work vaguely related to their prospective fields of interest but more often than not they're forced to begin the painful process of LOWERED EXPECTATIONS. Some become so desperate as to resort to calling phone numbers on cryptic-looking signs stapled to telephone poles:
I'm telling you right now from first hand experience: if it looks too good to be true, it usually is.
Every time someone mentions a job posting in a newspaper ad I'm destined to wake up screaming in a cold sweat sometime the following night. Let me take you back a few years, to a time of fear and darkness...
Graduation is a bittersweet moment of limbo for a person. Invariably you've just invested anywhere between seventeen and nineteen years being educated and the last paper you turned in is the scholastic equivalent of a long distance runner loosing control of their bowels just steps across the finish line.
In 1994 I was a fresh-faced graduate of St. Mary's prestigious (?) Honors English program and ready to take on the world. Unwilling to incur any more soul-crushing debt at the time and armed with an incredibly expensive piece of paper proving I was "right some smart", I decided to dip my toe into the employment market and test the waters. To bad I decided to do this smack-dab in the middle of a recession.
During that same summer I was living in a house with my girlfriend, two other friends, their respective better halves, and one other single, considerably more bitter friend. By June all the ladies were working and all the guys were sitting on the back porch like a pack of unarmed rednecks. About that same time I remember one of my friend's dads dropping by just long enough to call all the males in the house "a bunch of pimps" and then leave again.
But I was looking, dammit! When you begin this embarrassing odyssey of trying to get a complete stranger to grant you some semblance of a future, your naive expectations are systemically crushed in order of importance and how removed they are from reality.
I started with publishers, editors and print houses. No dice. Then I tried libraries, archives and museums. Tough roccos. Finally I began to dredge the last semi-respectable strata: bookstores, restaurants and...shudder...malls.
Y'see, the city of Halifax is like a tiny pool with a million piranha. Several major universities are spitting out new, hyper-specialized, freshly-scrubbed go-getters ever January and April. Rather than crawl back to the tedium of the backwater burg that spawned them these people are gonna try and embrace the "Bright Lights, Big City" lifestyle they've all come to know and love through many semi-memorable years of consuming it's readily available vices.
This will get you the sort of social experiment that would have Charles Darwin drooling like a Pavlovian dog. But if you're actually amidst this brutal feeding frenzy, it sorta feels like being trapped in a boxcar during a slow-motion derailment.
So, like many others, going home for me just wasn't an option. I was just about to begin the difficult process of shedding the last vestiges of my self-respect ("Would you like to super-size your combo for only .44 more cents, sir?") when someone suggested some impossibly juicy-looking gigs that had just materialized in the local paper.
Undaunted by the vague nature of the postings and blindly following promises of boffo wages like a friggin' "Scooby Snack" I dressed to the nines to answer my first call to interview.
It was downtown. In a real office building. I thought this rather promising until I arrived to find that a small classroom filled with people would be sharing my "interview".
The instructor soon made his entrance, not unlike someone with a British accent hawking blenders at 3 am on television just after the seventh episode of COPS has concluded.
He was a dapper, Middle-Eastern gentleman, dressed impeccably and sporting more jewelry than Croesus himself could ever fathom. His hair was an unmarked sculpture of resinated gel, mousse and possibly model glue.
During the presentation he was a house on fire; moving in a continuous St. Vitus-like dance of aerobic greed. Eventually he passed out a sheet of voided checks representing the company's recent payroll. The amounts seemed very generous but oddly flat.
"People here are making anywhere from five-hundred to two-thousand dollars EVERY WEEK! And how are they doing this? Please, let me introduce you to the highly lucrative world of Home Educational Reference Sales!"
Okay, let me just boil this down for you, Gentle Reader. We're talking about ENCYCLOPEDIAS here, folks. Door-to-door ENCYCLOPEDIA sales. The most stereotypical foot-sales job you could possibly imagine. I mean, let be realistic here, if a stranger came to your door and announced themselves as a serial rapist, you'd be more likely to let them in than a door-to-door ENCYCLOPEDIA salesman! "Home Educational Reference Sales", my ass! If you spray-paint a German Shepperd turd gold and stick a daisy in it, it don't make it a Ming vase, people.
Anyhoo, the deal was, if you sold a set of 'cyclos at $2000.00 a set (!) you'd get a commission of $500.00. This obviously went leaps and bounds to explain why the minimum paycheck they let up see was EXACTLY $500.00. What it didn't address was what you might do in the unlikely event that these beautiful "Home Educational Reference" Aides didn't sell themselves every week like proverbial hotcakes
After the "interview" our host made sure to meet privately with each of us in turn. I still remember his sagely words to me:
"I've had a chance to study your resume and I can see during the interview that you are alert and motivated. I would like to offer you a job with our company."
Like some of the more naive idiots in the class who hadn't walked out in the first three minutes, I was still bewitched by the sugar-plum like visions of $8000.00 checks cavorting unhindered in my head.
I thanked him for his confidence in me and rushed back home to report the good news. But half-way on my bus ride back a creeping fear began to gnaw on my guts. This steadily evolved into the sort of nervous state in which it feels as if your testicles have been dipped in liquid nitrogen and you know the ride ahead is rife with potholes.
When I got home the rest of the cat-house denizens explained to my lame green ass just why I'd suffered this panic attack.
"Did you notice if the checks you were shown were for the same employee or cut over the space of say, six months?"
"No."
"Did you consider that in an economically depressed area like ours how often people will be willing to habitually shell out two-thousand dollars for a set of generic encyclopedias?"
"Ah, well, they are nice..."
"And can you visualize yourself walking door to door in some of our more dodgy neighborhoods trying to invade the homes of people who routinely kill mailmen?"
"Hey, I delivered ad-mail when I was in High School. It can't be any worse than that..."
"Oh, yeah? What about making a sales presentation in some mutant's living room during a domestic dispute with kids spitting on you and strange dogs sniffing at your crotch?"
"What are you talking about?" I wailed.
My parent even concurred. I called the nice Middle Eastern gentleman back and broke the news to him. He told be he was "Berry, berry disappointed" in my decision.
Undaunted I continued to pursue my conviction that not all jobs advertised in the paper were of the same caliber as "meth whore".
But I wish I could say this story was the worst of it...
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II
EPIC: http://www.job-hunt.org/hiddenjobmarket.shtml
FAIL: http://www.worst-jobs.com/
'Tis that magical season when a student's thoughts turn invariably to summer employment. Many make an effort to look for work vaguely related to their prospective fields of interest but more often than not they're forced to begin the painful process of LOWERED EXPECTATIONS. Some become so desperate as to resort to calling phone numbers on cryptic-looking signs stapled to telephone poles:
STUDENT SUMMER WORK
$12.95/h
CALL: 555-2134
$12.95/h
CALL: 555-2134
I'm telling you right now from first hand experience: if it looks too good to be true, it usually is.
Every time someone mentions a job posting in a newspaper ad I'm destined to wake up screaming in a cold sweat sometime the following night. Let me take you back a few years, to a time of fear and darkness...
Graduation is a bittersweet moment of limbo for a person. Invariably you've just invested anywhere between seventeen and nineteen years being educated and the last paper you turned in is the scholastic equivalent of a long distance runner loosing control of their bowels just steps across the finish line.
In 1994 I was a fresh-faced graduate of St. Mary's prestigious (?) Honors English program and ready to take on the world. Unwilling to incur any more soul-crushing debt at the time and armed with an incredibly expensive piece of paper proving I was "right some smart", I decided to dip my toe into the employment market and test the waters. To bad I decided to do this smack-dab in the middle of a recession.
During that same summer I was living in a house with my girlfriend, two other friends, their respective better halves, and one other single, considerably more bitter friend. By June all the ladies were working and all the guys were sitting on the back porch like a pack of unarmed rednecks. About that same time I remember one of my friend's dads dropping by just long enough to call all the males in the house "a bunch of pimps" and then leave again.
But I was looking, dammit! When you begin this embarrassing odyssey of trying to get a complete stranger to grant you some semblance of a future, your naive expectations are systemically crushed in order of importance and how removed they are from reality.
I started with publishers, editors and print houses. No dice. Then I tried libraries, archives and museums. Tough roccos. Finally I began to dredge the last semi-respectable strata: bookstores, restaurants and...shudder...malls.
Y'see, the city of Halifax is like a tiny pool with a million piranha. Several major universities are spitting out new, hyper-specialized, freshly-scrubbed go-getters ever January and April. Rather than crawl back to the tedium of the backwater burg that spawned them these people are gonna try and embrace the "Bright Lights, Big City" lifestyle they've all come to know and love through many semi-memorable years of consuming it's readily available vices.
This will get you the sort of social experiment that would have Charles Darwin drooling like a Pavlovian dog. But if you're actually amidst this brutal feeding frenzy, it sorta feels like being trapped in a boxcar during a slow-motion derailment.
So, like many others, going home for me just wasn't an option. I was just about to begin the difficult process of shedding the last vestiges of my self-respect ("Would you like to super-size your combo for only .44 more cents, sir?") when someone suggested some impossibly juicy-looking gigs that had just materialized in the local paper.
Undaunted by the vague nature of the postings and blindly following promises of boffo wages like a friggin' "Scooby Snack" I dressed to the nines to answer my first call to interview.
It was downtown. In a real office building. I thought this rather promising until I arrived to find that a small classroom filled with people would be sharing my "interview".
The instructor soon made his entrance, not unlike someone with a British accent hawking blenders at 3 am on television just after the seventh episode of COPS has concluded.
He was a dapper, Middle-Eastern gentleman, dressed impeccably and sporting more jewelry than Croesus himself could ever fathom. His hair was an unmarked sculpture of resinated gel, mousse and possibly model glue.
During the presentation he was a house on fire; moving in a continuous St. Vitus-like dance of aerobic greed. Eventually he passed out a sheet of voided checks representing the company's recent payroll. The amounts seemed very generous but oddly flat.
"People here are making anywhere from five-hundred to two-thousand dollars EVERY WEEK! And how are they doing this? Please, let me introduce you to the highly lucrative world of Home Educational Reference Sales!"
Okay, let me just boil this down for you, Gentle Reader. We're talking about ENCYCLOPEDIAS here, folks. Door-to-door ENCYCLOPEDIA sales. The most stereotypical foot-sales job you could possibly imagine. I mean, let be realistic here, if a stranger came to your door and announced themselves as a serial rapist, you'd be more likely to let them in than a door-to-door ENCYCLOPEDIA salesman! "Home Educational Reference Sales", my ass! If you spray-paint a German Shepperd turd gold and stick a daisy in it, it don't make it a Ming vase, people.
Anyhoo, the deal was, if you sold a set of 'cyclos at $2000.00 a set (!) you'd get a commission of $500.00. This obviously went leaps and bounds to explain why the minimum paycheck they let up see was EXACTLY $500.00. What it didn't address was what you might do in the unlikely event that these beautiful "Home Educational Reference" Aides didn't sell themselves every week like proverbial hotcakes
After the "interview" our host made sure to meet privately with each of us in turn. I still remember his sagely words to me:
"I've had a chance to study your resume and I can see during the interview that you are alert and motivated. I would like to offer you a job with our company."
Like some of the more naive idiots in the class who hadn't walked out in the first three minutes, I was still bewitched by the sugar-plum like visions of $8000.00 checks cavorting unhindered in my head.
I thanked him for his confidence in me and rushed back home to report the good news. But half-way on my bus ride back a creeping fear began to gnaw on my guts. This steadily evolved into the sort of nervous state in which it feels as if your testicles have been dipped in liquid nitrogen and you know the ride ahead is rife with potholes.
When I got home the rest of the cat-house denizens explained to my lame green ass just why I'd suffered this panic attack.
"Did you notice if the checks you were shown were for the same employee or cut over the space of say, six months?"
"No."
"Did you consider that in an economically depressed area like ours how often people will be willing to habitually shell out two-thousand dollars for a set of generic encyclopedias?"
"Ah, well, they are nice..."
"And can you visualize yourself walking door to door in some of our more dodgy neighborhoods trying to invade the homes of people who routinely kill mailmen?"
"Hey, I delivered ad-mail when I was in High School. It can't be any worse than that..."
"Oh, yeah? What about making a sales presentation in some mutant's living room during a domestic dispute with kids spitting on you and strange dogs sniffing at your crotch?"
"What are you talking about?" I wailed.
My parent even concurred. I called the nice Middle Eastern gentleman back and broke the news to him. He told be he was "Berry, berry disappointed" in my decision.
Undaunted I continued to pursue my conviction that not all jobs advertised in the paper were of the same caliber as "meth whore".
But I wish I could say this story was the worst of it...
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART II
EPIC: http://www.job-hunt.org/hiddenjobmarket.shtml
FAIL: http://www.worst-jobs.com/
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