Temporary

Adulthood creeps up on you. Not in a nice way, but more in a “Ha! There go your medical benefits!” way. That's where adulthood starts – bills. You came back from Asia and tested positive for TB? Here's a chest x-ray bill and a nine-month prescription. Your old junker from high school got totaled by an uninsured driver? Here's a car payment for that new little Volkswagon with the great gas mileage. Did you say you wanted to live on your own? I'm sorry, this is California and you'll have to give up 2/3 of your pay, if you can still afford food after that.

In the classifications of arcane torture, looking for work falls somewhere between better-than-being-skinned/salted and not-worse-than-having-your-limbs-pulled-off-by-chariots. There's retail gigs, which many of us have done and many of us will continue to do, given that America's main industry is consumerism. But if you're aiming for that dream 9 to 5 that's a whole different story. It's 8 to 5 now, and if you want those 40 hours a week prepare to fight for them.

Back in college you don't worry about paying for anything until the student loans run out. You learn from your jaded Socialist teachers who are still paying off their loans, how labor is just another cost. The best way to keep costs low is to keep labor cheap – and the best way to do that is to have a pool of unemployed labor compete against each other for the lowest wages. Capitalists call this competition/free market mechanics. If there's a job anyone could do you're going to make minimum wage. If there's a job anyone with a brain could do then you might make a little more. Jobs that pay higher than that you've got to be either a geneticist or a rocket scientist (at least now we know about genetics, so you've got more options).

If that degree isn't a Bachelor of Science, we'll just call it a degree. No one will likely care what it is anyway. The fact that you have one shows that you were able to cram your way through finals and research 14 page essays and note your sources. You now qualify for more than retail; unless you just graduated, in which case give it a few until you can fulfill the "Catch 22" Years – can't get a job until you have experience and no one will give you experience until you get a job. During those early years prepare for unpaid internships or volunteer gigs on top of the retail job you can't get out of. Then maybe you will make it up to the entry level wage slave slot.

After my obligatory one year in retail and two year volunteer stint, I returned to the states in 2008. Right in time for my medical benefits to give out and early enough that Obamacare could not save me. Even living at home in my old bedroom, I had bills to pay. While I was away the economy had tanked so I returned to record unemployment at a time when many families were losing their breadwinners and younger graduates had to take a backseat. Looking at the news just depressed me. Where was I going to find a job? I technically had three years of working experience on top of my useless Bachelor of Arts. Until now my application processes had consisted of “grab a red shirt and a cash register” or “let's spend a year waiting for background/medical clearance before we ship you overseas” gigs. These methods had been relatively easy to follow. Now I had no idea where to begin.

Looking online you find listings which read like failed personal ads. The catchphrases are similar to dating in how you read between the lines to gain a better idea of what the person is really like. For example:

Looking for multi-tasker - Meaning: You're taking over the work of three people

Must thrive under pressure – Meaning: Those three people did a lot of work

Self-starters only need apply – Meaning: We won't train you so learn fast

Include salary requirements – Meaning: Bid on your wages so we can hire the cheapest person

The other fun thing in 2008? There were hundreds of applications for these listings. Even the ugly ones, to continue using date speak. Your application probably wouldn't even see the light of a desk buried in all the desperate pleas for work. If it did get seen then pray you made it through the rest of the hiring process as there were hundreds of backups waiting in the wings for you to fail.

I spent a few months at my parents house regaining sanity before I started looking for work. Not having something responsible to do drove me quietly crazy. I didn't need a grand purpose or goal in life, I just needed something to keep my task-centered mind busy. My three years of experience after college consisted of a toy store and volunteering in the frozen steppes of Asia; not exactly resume boosters, although surviving -40 below is always an interesting interview point. Mostly I dreaded preparing hundreds of cover letters and resumes to try to win against a horde of unemployed like me.

“You need a headhunter,” Dad advised me in one of his moods of sage wisdom.

“Like the ones who shrink skulls?”

“No. They find you a job and take a percentage of your wages after you start.”

“Ah. So they'll do all the work for me?” Not bad, not bad. “What if they can't find anything for my resume?”

He shrugged. “You can apply on your own too, they're just an extra resource.”

Side note here – my father not only has that Bachelor of Science he has two masters degrees and only stopped short of a doctorate when he decided to settle down with my mother. A headhunter would probably do well with his head, shrunk or not.

“There's a job fair at the college this weekend,” Mom pointed out. “We could go there." Mom has a Bachelor's of Science in forensic chemistry, from back in the late 80's before CSI made it popular.

My family lived in Ohio until my last year in high school. That year my father's employer, one of the few non-factory jobs in the area, told him they could only guarantee him employment for five more years. They shut down slowly. A few years later I heard the other factory that employed the rest of the city, including three generations of my schoolmates and their families, shut down too. I think this demoted my old stomping grounds from “city” to “town”.

With four kids my father started looking before the axe fell and we ended up moving all the way to California, the land of opportunity. Back then, anyway. I read an article a few years later that Ohio actually lost the most jobs of any state in the union during President George W. Bush's two terms in office. Yet they elected him both times - granted with the help of the rest of the country, but usually you don't make it into office without Ohio. I wondered if any Ohioans read that article. President Obama got elected two terms too right afterwards. Never piss off a swing state.

“I graduated three years ago, I don't think I can go?” The college campus felt like a wartime flashback zone to me.

“Sure you can, it's open to the public.” She checked the listing. “I'll come with you, it'll be fun.”

“Alright.” My car had been totaled so I didn't have many options. Family outings were always more fun with everyone, anyway.

I spent the next couple days panicked over resume building. With some guidance from my father, who I'm sure enjoyed trying to come up with boring job skills that didn't involve lab experience or knowledge of radioactive isotopes, we crafted a decent resume. Digging through the closet and the clearance racks at Kohl's I put together a respectable ensemble. I topped it all off with an official looking folder from my mother for carrying my dozen or so resume copies. I felt official, I had freebies to give away, how could I not succeed?

At the college campus there was a small crowd of young college students and recent grads, wandering in various outfits that said “I'm trying” or “I'm not-trying”. A few adults had shown as well, rounding out the age group of the pack. The small auditorium held a handful of booths manned by semi-energetic hosts with applications and brochures advertising their job opportunities.

We wandered around the hall, stopping at the different stations to pick up business cards or fliers. The well-uniformed police officer looked at me and remarked they always needed good dispatchers. A couple bored youths representing party rentals talked about their monster stereo system and setting it up for gigs. The other tables blurred together in rows of career monotony, nobody appearing very eager either to hire or apply.

Outside the auditorium we stopped for some free snacks handed out by the student and staff volunteers organizing the event. A few of the vendors had set up shop out here in the sunshine, large plastic tarps shading their pamphlets and science fair-style backboards. One falsely enthused gentleman rambled on to another about agricultural factories and the need for workers. Next door a smartly dressed blonde smiled and caught my eye.

Her placard said “Cubicle Crew” and her business casual outfit popped out in a sea of other boring suits and logo shirts. She waved us over with a friendly grin and pumped my hand.

“So what are you looking to do?” Her demeanor seemed pleasant but the undertone of her gaze and voice suggested a small mental panel of judges critiquing your responses.

I shrugged and smiled back, handing over my resume on fancy $2 a page card stock. “I'm just looking to get into business,” I said, sounding smart but non-committal.

Glancing over the resume her eyes picked out my one semi-claim to fame. “You were in Peace Corps? That's amazing! How was it?”

“Cold.” I used my patented response for this question.

“Oh!” Taking my response as humor (which it partly was, hence the beauty of it) she glossed over the rest of my credentials and handed me her neat white business card. “Well we could certainly use a smart worker like you. We place job seekers in a variety of positions in the tri-valley area! Many of our temps get hired within three months as well,” she added proudly. “There's a growing demand for detail-oriented hires with experience.”

Ah. My two year stint counted as experience. Cool. I felt my bargaining power grow a bit. “How do you get started?”

Grabbing one of her seven clipboards, one of which another lady in a more colorful power suit had picked up, she handed me an application. “Fill out one of these and I'll take a copy of your resume to complete the application. Once we review it our staff will interview you at our office, over by the mall. We also do a few skills assessments – you know, office programs, typing, that sort of thing. Once you're set up in the system then we match you to prospective jobs and contact you with the details.”

“Ah.” So head hunting, sort of, less messy skulls and shrinking. “Sounds good! I'll just fill this in and leave it with my resume.”

“Great! While you're here let's just go ahead and schedule your interview. How about next week?”

The nice thing about unemployment is whenever anyone asks your schedule you can automatically say yes since life has no other holds to you. At least that's how anyone talking to you feels, so you're obligated to agree to whatever dates they offer. “That works for me.”

“Okay! You're all set. We'll see you next week.” She smiled in that falsely perky way again and waved as we wandered back to the van.

My mother gushed, “How wonderful! Maybe she can get you a job soon! That will be nice, get out of the house you know?”

“Yeah, it will.” Because the other nice thing about unemployment is any job is better than sitting at home doing nothing.

Well, almost.