Here where I work, we have a help-wanted sign in the window. I have several inquiries a day about hours and pay and that sort of thing. Yesterday, for whatever reason, I found myself waxing nostalgic about my younger days and the many jobs I held and applied for. Some I worked at for only a day. I suppose my work ethic wasn’t quite what it should have been.
I have done landscape and maintenance(quite ironic since I can do neither of those things with any degree of skill today), worked in a college bookstore, at a cotton gin(for a day), pulled weeds in a cotton field(for half a day), been the maintenance guy at a mini-golf course(refer to the first item in this list), worked in a Christian bookstore, worked in the warehouse at a Caterpillar place, and held various jobs at two different financial institutions. I was technically not fired from any of those jobs, difficult as that may be to believe, but my position at the college bookstore was eliminated for “austerity.” I think that is Latin for “spent too much time at the pool table in the student center” but I wouldn’t swear to it.
I always hated filling out applications. I always felt like they were laughing at me and making snide comments when I left. “Did you see his tie? Who tied that thing, Ronnie Milsap?” Of course that would be assuming that I wore a tie. I often didn’t wear one on my job hunting adventures. It just seemed sort of silly to wear a tie to a place where I would likely be assigned to do some unskilled, menial task which would probably require steel-toe boots and moving heavy things from one place to another. Not that there’s anything wrong with those jobs, I’ve done plenty of them. I’ve just never done one while wearing a tie and my Sunday shoes.
I went to a place to fill out an application once that I’d never been to. It was a large building that was visible from a major highway but you had to go in through an access road in the back to get to it. The whole front of the building was glass which afforded a wonderful, unobstructed view of the large, green front lawn and the highway in the distance. I know this because when I parked and walked around the building and went through the front doors to find the person I’d need to talk to, I found that the whole front of the building was abandoned. I walked to every door on all three floors only to find them locked. When I went to leave, not sure where I needed to go, I found the doors I had entered through were locked also. I was trapped. Trapped with a spacious view! I was finally rescued but when I finally got to the place I needed to be, the guy who gave me the job application asked, “Are you the peckerwood who broke into my building.” I told him that I was, scribbled some on the application, and left. I figured that if the guy in charge of job applications thought I was a peckerwood then I probably didn’t have much chance of getting hired there anyway. I’ve never known there to be a big demand in the workforce for peckerwoods. I can remember two times in my life when I was called that and neither time did it seem to be any sort of a compliment.
Good luck to all of you who are on the job-hunting trail. I hope you find the job of your dreams today. Thank goodness I’ve already got a job and don’t have to look anymore. I’m not sure this peckerwood could stomach it anymore.
Like this:
Like Loading...
The View From We2 