Job Search Update / Economic Class in America

The laws of the universe were defied yesterday: somebody actually called me for a job interview. I was beginning to think there was some sort of huge conspiracy amongst all businesses in the Provo/Orem area to specifically bar me from any kind of employment. Even McDonalds turned its nose up at me (ok, I didn’t really apply at McDonalds, but don’t think I wasn’t starting to consider it). Anyway, I was all in a flutter because the interview was for a nice position in the Q&A department of a large company which happens to have a factory in the area, paying far more than what I had to expected to get just out of college with an English degree. With my savings slowly yet inexorably dwindling, I received the call somewhat like a choking man receives the Heimlich maneuver: with great relief and gratitude.

I went dressed to the nines. My roommate has a high profile fancy pants job so he has lots of nice formal clothes he let me borrow. I wore his expensive suit, and a nice dark blue shirt and a dark tie. I wore shiny black shoes that hurt my feet. I parted my hair in the most conservative manner I could. When I stood back and looked at myself in the mirror, I hardly recognized myself, for two reasons. First, I looked good. Damn good. Like some sort of millionaire playboy with a huge mansion, a yacht, and a secret cave where I keep my high-tech super suit I use to fight evil at night. Second, I looked so corporate, like one of those guys you see hustling importantly through the airport with a briefcase while shouting into their cell phone, “Tell Johnson to fax those PD6 forms now, dammit!” As someone who characteristically raves about the evils of corporate culture, it felt very odd to see myself dressed up in the uniform of the enemy. But I needed this job badly, so I needed to make a good first impression; and anyway, at least I looked hot.

I was expecting to meet with a big-wig at the company, so I practiced acting professional and confident. You’d think as an actor this would be easy, but let me tell you its likes apples and oranges. We’re talking about two entirely different arenas of performance here. Anyway, you can imagine my chagrin when I arrive at the address given to me to find myself at nothing less than a shoddy-looking temp agency. The waiting room was filled with what I would call “the dredges of society” if I wasn’t such a Marxist by principle and therefore a supposed friend to the working classes. I was dressed for prom, while everybody else looked like they grabbed whatever was on top of their clothes pile that morning. Nobody had told me that the position I was going for was “temp to hire” meaning I would be hired as a temp first with the possibility of being officially hired as a full time employee later, based on performance. This was more anticlimactic than disappointing; the pay was still good and it’s a way to finally get my foot in the door somewhere.

Interviews were conducted at a desk in the middle of the large room from which everything could be heard by the people waiting their turn. Because of this, I was given a fascinating glimpse at the lives of these employment-seeking proletariats I was sharing the room with. They all seemed to be going for temp work on the factory floor, running machines and lifting heavy objects and the like. One fellow wearing a baseball cap was apparently trying to return to the factory after having been fired almost three years ago for “excessive absences.” He explained he wanted a second chance because it was the best job he’d ever had. I guess it took me by surprise that anybody anywhere considered standing on the factory assembly line a good job. The lady doing the interviews tried several times to politely tell him that it was highly unlikely he’d be hired again considering his past record, but he never seemed to take the hint. He burbled enthusiastically to some girl in the waiting room he seemed to know about how close he was to being re-hired.

There were others too. One enthusiastic young lady just couldn’t seem to wait to stand in one place for ten hours a day. She had previously been working at some kind of CD case assembly factory, and I guess it seemed to her that making frozen TV dinners would be a step up. Another very young looking girl explained she could only work the night shift because she just had a baby and she couldn’t get a babysitter during the day. I wondered when on earth she was going to sleep if she was watching the baby all day and working all night. There were also several people who had been here more than once. “Well, hi there, Guadalupe!” the interview lady said, “Welcome back. How are your kids?”

This is the side of America so many of us smarmy middle and upper class college graduates never get to see. The uneducated American working class, largely the same as the proletariat of Europe that Marx wrote about: still without any means of production, still forced to sell nearly every minute of their time and every ounce of their labor just to survive. I sat among them in a suit that probably cost more than what they made in a month, feeling sorry for their plight in a sort of condescending, bourgeoisie sort of way and trying to decide how best to exploit the experience for my blog.

All hope is not lost, however. I listened to an inspiring story on NPR about a young girl from the working class whose parents were Mexican immigrants. Through hard work in school she was accepted to Stanford and was able to attend due to the large number of scholarships and federal aid she received. Her father worked his whole life digging irrigation ditches all day, and she was able to pursue a college degree at a prestigious university. If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is. It's nice to know that, for some people some of the time, that dream can actually come true.