Will work for...

Daughter # 2 has a second interview for a job she really wants today. She has been job hunting for months and blames the economy for her lack of success. I am amazed that no one has snatched her up yet – she would be the most wonderful employee anyone could hope to have. I know several people who are having a tough time finding work right now, they are all more than qualified, and they all blame the economy.

Every job I have held, I have come by easily. I began my job history babysitting my younger siblings and all of the neighborhood kids. I was always in demand. On Friday and Saturday nights I had several job offers and I was booked for New Year’s Eve months in advance. I could be selective about my employers, only selecting those with the most docile children, the well stocked refrigerator and the best television and stereo system. I raked in the dough, beginning at fifty-cents an hour and eventually working my way up to a dollar.

The day I turned sixteen I applied for employment at the neighborhood drugstore where all of my friends worked. The owner, a man in his early thirties with a wife and two kids, hired all of the cute and popular high school girls. He hired more girls than he needed to help out in the small store and eventually went bankrupt, but I got the job and began earning minimum wage which was an astounding $1.60 an hour. I worked in the drug store through high school and during every vacation of my first two years of college. I learned a lot at that job; I learned I cannot drive a standard shift vehicle (after the transmission on the delivery van had to be replaced following my attempt at “delivery-girl”), I broke up with my boyfriend in the Hallmark Card aisle, I turned down a marriage proposal from a lonely pharmacist, and I realized I never wanted to stand behind a cash register ever again in my employment career. I still have nightmares featuring long lines of angry customers and a frozen cash register.

I finished college working as an early morning nanny for four children whose newly widowed mother had returned to college. I loved the children, but hated the hours. After college I moved on to a string of very interesting jobs before I landed my dream job of stay-at-home Mom, the most demanding, underpaid and underappreciated career path I could have chosen. When my children were in junior high and high school my current job came along quite by accident, when I wasn’t even looking for work.

The point of all of this is to say – I have never had difficulty finding employment. Thank God I’m not looking for a job today! It frightens me to see what is happening with friends and family looking for work. I have visions of the Joad family from Grapes of Wrath every time I hear a report of another qualified friend being fired, or laid off, or “let go.” My brother’s company is shutting down one week of each month to cut expenses. That translates to a twenty-five percent cut in pay for him – but, “at least he has a job.”

“At least he/she has a job,” is a phrase I have heard a lot this past year. It has come to mean – so what if he/she is overworked, underpaid, treated poorly, and has no health insurance – “at least he/she has a job.” Whoa – we live in post depression-era, prosperous America, don’t we? I really want to believe our economy is turning around. I really, really want to believe the recession won’t turn into a full-blown depression. I’ve got my fingers crossed for my daughter’s interview today. If she gets the job perhaps I can erase the vision of myself cast in the role of Ma Joad – that’s one job I don’t want to come by easily.