We're poor. H hasn't been able to find a job yet and yet somehow the bills keep coming even though we're not doing anything except job hunting and eating. (Hmm. We should stop eating.) So today I bundled up my ego and took it with me to a temp agency. Ego came back bruised and bleeding.
I put on my best clothes, walk into the air-conditioned “We’ve got your money and we’re using it to stay cold and protect our plastic plants” office, and wait to be told to sit down. Wait an inordinate amount of time because niceties aren’t observed the way they used to be, but I need to show that I know them.
Finally I sit, on the edge of my chair so as to keep my back straight, a look of interest and eagerness wallpapered onto my face, smiling at a conversely bored and tired wallpapered face, only I think hers probably is wallpaper because it’s so pale and fixed.
“So you’re A,” as if that weren’t obvious.
“Yes, thank you for seeing me.”
“I see you’ve…” and she goes through my list of qualifications, occasionally looking up at me to make sure I’m nodding along, as if I don’t know this already, and plainly telling me that she never gave the application a glance until I showed up and unknowingly reminded her of the appointment.
My qualifications include, but are not limited to: manual labor in the form of maintenance, stump removal, construction, and several summers as a whitewater rafting guide; office labor in terms of maintaining a budget, transcription, data entry, telephoning; and best of all, all my writing and editing experience and my TWO FUCKING' COLLEGE DEGREES—all of which she sniffs at as if the air conditioning were drying out her nasal passages.
By the end of the interview, I’m convinced that she must be a sex goddess because the only way she’s more employable than I am is for her to be giving favors to the boss. Some boss, somewhere, at least.
“Well,” she concludes, and I can tell because the questions she’s gone over never start with a conjunction. This is the first. “Well, we don’t have any openings right now, but when we do and if you’re qualified, we’ll submit your application.” And we’ll garnish 20% of your income for our service fee.
She asks if I have questions. I say “Yes,” and the air conditioning dries out her nose again. Sniff.
What kinds of jobs have you been able to place people with?
What types of skills are my most valuable for the jobs you hear about?
If I kick you in the ass, will you quit sniffing?
I am ever gracious, smile, thank her kindly, stick out my hand to shake hers, but she turns away, and I’m left with the reminder that I’m on one side of the desk and she, the other, and I am not to forget my place or be unmollified that she disdains to shake my hand.
Should I offer her a Kleenex?