I am 20 minutes early, so I duck into the bathroom for one last check. I curse myself when I notice a coffee drip on my blouse. Damned cheap travel mug. Luckily, I can cover it up under the lapel of my blazer jacket. I give my hair a fluff, apply some lip gloss, and head out to the information desk.
A middle-aged woman greets me with a cautious smile. "How can I help you?" she asks politely.
I am here to meet Cindy and David to gauge my candidacy for becoming another cautious smile behind the information desk. I find my way up the stairs to a conference room and sit next to Cindy and across from David at the round conference table. Cindy takes out a sheet of what I presume are interview questions. They both glance at copies of my resume (which they received 10 days ago) in silence.
Cindy mentions the schedules, which vary, and that they can only offer me up to 25 hours, but that some weeks it might be less. She shows me a print out of the current schedule, with names highlighted. We discuss briefly my experiences with customer service and then David interjects. I appreciate his candor. Give it to me straight.
"We put a lot into training the people who work at the information desk," he says. "The woman who this position is replacing was here for 22 years, and another woman was here for 15." He gazes firmly into my eyes. "I'm concerned, given your resume..." he pauses diplomatically, "that we'd just get you trained and you'd leave us for a full-time job. And given the pay rate..." (he continues, and I realize I don't even know what the job pays, but I presume it ain't pretty if he has to preface it like that) "...I'm also concerned about your commute. How long did it take you to get here?"
Forty minutes.
The pay rate? $9.25 an hour. $1.40 more than minimum wage. And no benefits.
The interview lasts all of five minutes before I'm told in so many words that I am "over qualified."
And this information was gleaned from my resume, which was in both Cindy and David's hands over a week ago. Couldn't they have concluded a week ago that they found me "over qualified?" Before I spent the better part of the morning driving nearly two hours?
I've considered, lately, hiding my degree just so I can get a job - any job.
Today, I contacted the university where I received my degree from - and where I also was a faculty member until 2010 - to request copies of my transcripts. An awesome job opened up nearby, but transcripts are needed to apply.
"It looks like there is a parking hold on your transcript release," the woman at the registrar's office said.
"Oh?" I replied, thinking I could give her my card for the $20 or whatever amount was preventing me from obtaining my transcripts and be on my way. "How much is it for?" I asked.
"One hundred and forty three dollars..."
"What?" I exclaimed.
The hurdles of achieving employment seem impossible. This is the modern day Holy Grail. At least for me. I spend half my days looking for and applying for jobs that I seem to just miss the mark on; I'm either over qualified, under qualified, "second choice" if the first choice declines the offer (yes, I've heard this twice now), or can't afford to pay some overpriced ridiculous parking ticket to the university to release my transcripts. And now documentation of my college career - eight years of my life - will be held hostage indefinitely because I parked on a slab of concrete for a couple hours without a piece of plastic on my window stating I had privileges enough to park there.
In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, I don't even have any good skills.
While filling out my profile on monster.com, I am stumped by the "skills" section.
 |
| Please note how resourceful I am by the tab within the screen shot labeled "Taking screen shots on a Mac OS..." |
I have mad skills. I am awesome at Photoshop, pretty good with a camera, fearless in front of an audience. I have great rhythm, am decent with semi-colons, damned resourceful and hella persistent. I'm a great debater, don't ever back down from a challenge, and damn it if I'm not versatile.
So what gives?
Submitted respectfully,
Hopeful (and yet hopelessly unemployed) in Ohio.
Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio. Her mad skills can be viewed here
No comments:
Post a Comment