As it turns out, money is necessary in order to pay the rent and buy groceries. So I went out and got another job yesterday. This time, instead of grading papers and creating lesson plans, I'll have the all-important job of...answering the phone. At first, my future employer thought I might not be qualified for the position since I've been a teacher for the last 2-3 years. But I cited all of my previous experience with picking up the phone and greeting the voice on the other end, then demonstrated that I do in fact have the ability to speak. This seemed to inspire confidence, and I got the job. I'm so thrilled about this job, that I almost forgot about it already. I booked a flight to Sacramento to visit a friend and couldn't figure out why I had a nagging feeling about my Friday morning flight out of Long Beach. I knew there must be SOME reason why I couldn't leave on a Friday morning. Then I remembered the job. Apparently I'll be expected to go and answer the phone Monday through Friday from 8-5. I suppose I've been on summer vacation for too long and forgot how people who aren’t teachers or students live between June and September. Why don’t we ALL take a month or so off in the summer like the Europeans do? Americans would be so much happier and more productive. I'll never understand the need to keep going to work EVERYDAY of the year. Some things can just wait while we take a moment to live our lives.
Anyway. This job is going to be perfect. Yes it's going to make me want to throw myself in front of a bus at times with the monotony of it, but there will be NO ESSAYS TO GRADE and no weekend work. I'll be free in the evenings to go to class, study, write, watch Project Runway and drink wine, among other important things. So this could work.
Another company offered me a receptionist job yesterday, but the office where I interviewed had me running away as quickly as possible in my interviewing heels. The whole place smelled like sweat and chicken wings. There were questionable stains on the carpet, and piles and piles of mess all over the place. The man hiring looked like he was probably Jabba the Hut in another life. I hate to sound so mean, but that is the best and really only way to describe him. He wore an old black T-shirt with holes in it, shorts, and a grungy pair of flip flops that looked like they could run out of the office themselves. I tried to leave the second I got there, but I had already made contact with Jabba and I didn't want to be rude. I also figured any interview is a learning experience, right? So I sat down (after wiping down the chair) and waited for my turn.
My competition was a girl in silly shoes with trampy make-up. It was her turn to go in, but her phone rang. The best part is that she actually answered it in front of all of us! She picked up and started explaining to the person on the other end that she was in an interview and needed to go. I wondered if this was a ploy to demonstrate her phone-answering skills for the job, but it went on for too long. She argued with the person on the phone for almost a full minute before saying, "You're making me look really bad here". I almost got up and yelled at her to hang up the phone and get her ass into the interview so that some of us could hurry up and get out of here, but her shoes looked like they doubled as weapons, so I stayed quiet. The first thing this girl said when she met Jabba and shook his hand was, "So, I do HAVE a resume, but I thought it was in my car...and it's not...so I don’t really have one..." I didn't hear the rest of this because the door was closed after that. But it's these moments that really make me worry about the future of America. How does that girl survive? No one will hire her, and they certainly wont keep her around for long with that kind of professionalism. So how does she pay the bills? But whenever I start to worry about the future of America, I remember my students and how incredibly smart and professional they are, even at 15. So I think we'll be ok if we have them in the mix.
Anyway, scary shoes girl obviously didn't get the job, because it was offered to me. I very kindly said no thank you and thanked Jabba for his time. He really was a nice guy and I hope he finds someone that'll do a good job for him. In the interview I sensed that he was really nervous and just isn’t comfortable around people. He kept pointing out the holes in his shirt and saying he would have dressed up if he'd known he was going to conduct interviews today. I was going to suggest that he must have known, because he's the one that called everyone in to interview, but I decided to keep quiet and keep smiling instead. In the end I guess it was a good experience, because I got to practice pretending to want a job that I don’t really want. I'm convinced it was this practice interview that got me the job I actually ended up taking. The office I'll be working in is clean, bright, fragrant, and I didn't see any holes in anyone's clothes. I also didn't see scary shoes, so I think I'll be comfortable there.
However, I can sense that I'm going to need to hurry up and become a rich and famous author so that I dont have to work in any of these places. I can't handle working for other people in the first place, but I especially hate working for people that have less than a complete brain (see image).
Maybe someday I can hire someone to answer my phone for me...
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