Rejected

Half the fun of having this blog is finding out what Google Images returns for my searches. For the record, these happy people represent "employment." Don't search for "rejected" unless you want to see a picture of a woman with three boobs and a picture of a French lady with a tumor growing in her nose that... Look, just never use the Internet.

If ever you’re in a screwball comedy movie and you’re being chased, I highly recommend that you jump over a fence into the nearest backyard/junkyard. Yes, there will be a Rottweiler and it will probably want to eat your face, but never fear: It’ll start running toward you and go as fast as it can with every intention of eating your face, but at the last second its chain will go taut and it’ll get yanked back right before it can do any damage. I’ve seen this in, like, at least three movies.

I felt sort of like a movie Rottweiler when I went down to Carl’s (the local burger joint where I spent all of last summer making milkshakes) two days ago. I had gone in over spring break to ensure that I’d be able to get my old job back once school was out for summer, and my old supervisor assured me that, yes, all I had to do was come in once I got back to Portland and they’d put me back on the schedule. So, when I went two days ago, I had every intention of eating the face of continued summer employment. I was running as fast as I could, figuratively speaking.

So when my supervisor told me matter-of-factly that they’d already hired a bunch of people for the summer and they weren’t sure if they were going to have room for me, yeah, it was sort of like the whole chain thing. With one hearty jerk, all of your plans for the immediate future are gone, and you realize you’re back to square one. Namely, I’m in the same place I was at the beginning of last summer – I need a job. Only last summer, I’d known in advance that I’d need a job, so I’d canvassed my neighborhood ten weeks ahead of time during spring break. Also, no global economic meltdown. God, that Rottweiler has it easy.

I can understand if things were a bit unclear for the people at Carl’s – I mean, all I’d done was go in ahead of time and confirm that I’d still have a job, and they said yes, and then I asked if hiring was slower because of the economy, and they said no, things are about the same, and I said great. I mean, sure, they did basically guarantee that I’d have a job waiting for me and dissuade me from putting out applications elsewhere, but of course, they could’ve just been playing Punk’d: Home Edition. It’s a lot like regular Punk’d on TV, only instead of celebrities it’s honest and hardworking (yet still beautiful) people, and while on the show everything is okay afterwards, in this version they’re basically stuffing a dead skunk with dogshit and throwing it through the victim’s window while he sleeps. And then nailing all the doors to his house shut and setting it on fire, and shooting anyone who leaves the house. And then giving Terminator: Salvation a high rating on IMDb.

Not okay, Carl’s. Not. Okay. I swear to God, I would boycott you if your food wasn’t so fucking delicious.

Yes, those of you who know me will point out that I’m a spoiled bastard who doesn’t have to pay for his own education, so why should I even worry about having a job? The fact of the matter is, money is money, and it’s always good to have more of it. Also, without a job, what the hell am I going to do this summer? I already beat Gears of War 2, so there’s that off my list. Also, I can’t spend the entire summer sleeping and watching TV, because I don’t have anybody to feed me grapes while I do it. I suppose I could hire somebody to do that, but to be able to afford it I’d need to have a job, so once again I’m back to square one.

The very nature of job hunting feels somewhat unnatural – you’re basically going around asking people to deprive you of free time and potentially make you miserable. Of course, until they think of a better way to keep people from starving to death, it’s probably the only option. The Girlfriend has been looking for a job herself recently, and out of lack of anything else to do (like work, for instance) I’ve been tagging along. Most places she goes into, the proprietor is very polite about telling her that they have already hired their summer staff – this does not bode well for me, because if she, who is far more pleasant and hygienic than I am, can’t get a job, what are my chances?

The sad fact of the matter is that private school kids – namely those scoundrels from the nearby Reed College – get out a good month before all of us state college slackers, and thus have a jump on the job market. Seeing as their fancy-pants, prestigious education is going to put them significantly ahead of the rest of us after college, the least they could do is back the hell off and let us have a shot at the crappy summer jobs. Of course, if this economy holds up, being significantly ahead of the rest of us for post-college job opportunities means landing a second interview at Goodwill while everybody else doesn’t get a call back.

Time and again, “Don’t Know What You Got ‘Till It’s Gone” seems to be the 80s power ballad that best encapsulates my feelings. Last summer I had two jobs that kept me working seven days a week, both of them within three blocks of my house, during a time when I thought that the economy was bad. Now I’m looking at the Subway across the street and wondering if I have what it takes to stand on the other side of the sneeze guard.

Maybe I’ll try to beat Gears of War 2 again.

Truman Capps hopes any potential employers reading this know that he is, in fact, a hardworking individual who is never sarcastic on the clock.