Back in the Kitchen!

I started a new job as a dishwasher at an Australian pie restaurant Saturday evening. That I managed to get the job strikes me as sheer good luck: on Wednesday I responded to the Craigslist ad with a flippant anti-corporate tirade as a way of telling the business owner about myself, whereupon I was surprised to hear back from her asking me if I could come in Thursday for an interview ... and even more surprised that the interview went well enough for her to hire me out of a total of five applicants (I was pretty tired that day, having woken up at four and gone canning early as a result). I guess I seemed like a serious, motivated, and culinarily sophisticated enough guy?

Or the other four guys were inarticulate dolts. Apparently the guy I replaced was fired because he walked off the job during a rush to smoke a cigarette, and was gone for over half an hour, and hadn't even told anyone he was leaving! I wouldn't be surprised if it was the look of indignant consternation that crossed my face upon hearing this during the interview that got me hired; you just don't do that shit!

I'm only working Thursday through Saturday evenings, probably in total an average of sixteen hours per week. Manageable, considering my legs and my social ineptitude and the fact that I haven't worked in any official payroll capacity in almost nine years ... well, okay, almost one-and-a-half years if the Georgia Hotel is to be counted. Saturday impressed upon me that this isn't a typical madhouse food factory hand dishwashing job; most restaurants will squeeze as much prep out of a dishwasher as they can, but since we receive pies delivered from the sister restaurant that's in charge of pie production I'll probably never be beleaguered with much of that ancillary duty.

Yeah, I totally lucked out, and I'm going to work hard for these guys and keep this job. Saturday wasn't busy because people were carousing the streets in costumes and getting wasted, so it turned out to be a perfect day for training. It came as quite the surprise to me that I figured everything out so quickly and no longer needed any guidance after a couple hours into the shift; either the job really is easy or I have a sort of subconscious eidetic recall when it comes to restaurant work. I was even told by the manager that already on my first day I was out-performing another dishwasher who's been working there for years; awkward and somewhat impolitic on her part.

Job Search

I can see why a lot of people who are on the streets or in subsidized housing don't look for work. Of course I'm referring specifically to those who are mentally and physically able to hold jobs. Sure, some people are lazy, but it's ignorant to blame unemployment solely on laziness; I wouldn't be at all surprised that proportionately speaking there are more gainfully employed slackers than there are unemployed — it's been my personal experience that only half of my co-workers were worth their presence on the job, and out of them only maybe a quarter of them were real go-getters. And, yeah, jobs tend to suck, many of which seem not to pay enough for the shit that's endured while on the clock.

No, it's the getting shot down over and over again that does it, andd that goes into the rejection. A lot of us poor folk are good workers, and indeed many of us would rather work than eke out a meager existence panhandling or canning (contrary to a widely held belief, even most freeway sign fliers don't make as much in a day as they would putting those hours in at minimum wage, and even during summer I've never been able to earn in eight hours canning what I would flipping burgers). But, we don't look good on paper — even those among us whose looks belie our lifestyles — and corporations have grown not only increasingly unforgiving of checkered pasts and inglorious circumstances, but they have in fact grown outright hostile to their employees.

Which brings me to the why of the rejection, the calls that are never returned or the interviews that end on a sour note: corporate culture. Big Business views us all — even those who are educated and skilled and supposedly indispensable — much as nobility used to view their serfs; fidelity is expected from us, even while we're regarded more as potential liabilities than as potential assets — some Sheriff of Nottingham asshole is always hovering over your shoulder ensuring none of the king's game is being poached (woe betide the ballpoint pen thief!). We're all civilian draftees in a mercenary army that specializes in marching to the beat of douchebag doges' drums. Criminal background checks, credit checks, personality tests, and questions that effectively screen out the disingenuous ass-kissers from honest people just out to pay the rent and enjoy the occasional night out ... this is still for a job, right?

So, yeah, I've applied at over a dozen places so far, and nothing's panned out. As we know, the one gas station job didn't work out. I almost got hired to cook for a bar, but a clusterfuck typical of family businesses run by multiple siblings resulted in me getting jerked around by two brothers, both of whom hired people — only I ended up eating sandal dust in the end, and ended up back at Square One. That was bitterly disappointing. So, today I get the honor of handing in an application to the nearby Dollar Tree, where everyone looks as thrilled to be there as that poor guy in the Futurama work motivational poster. And, of course, I'm going to wonder more and more as I go along “Do I even really want this?”

The Inconveniences of Terrestrial Meteorology

Well, what a time for a dying typhoon to careen into the Pacific Northwest! The reason I say this is because I can't go out and make any money canning when it's raining steadily hard enough to soak through my tattered shoes; not to mention that my North Face® jacket has long ago lost its waterproofing. And, well, I don't have any ski pants, either — living indoors has encouraged me to grow complacent, and so I'm not equipped for rain, nor am I for the inevitable chill that should seep in by the end of November.

Which means I'm going to have to wear plastic bags around my feet on the rainy days until I find or can afford to buy a new pair of shoes, though not until tomorrow or Monday, since this weather isn't encouraging people to meander the streets whilst quaffing electrolyte water and Italian sodas. Yes, I do regret the job not having worked out, especially now that I'm going to have to can up about $110 by the tenth of November in order to keep my electricity running and my phone service. At least I was smart enough to get a new phone and service, so that I'm better able to effectively look for work.

Not that I have high expectations of a fruitful job search; the only thing that will probably be going on will be holiday temp work, which I'm reluctant to even consider. Besides, I need to get my new state ID, anyway. And, of course, when I went down to Transition Projects for help I was rebuffed with a requirement for specific documents verifying yes, I am indeed a broke-ass mofo, that of course I don't have. I'll be back Tuesday laden with small ream of papers for them to choke on, I assure you — if I can't afford to pay my utilities I can't afford to pay for the ID card.

It may be time for me to try flying a sign again, at least on the days I can't or won't go canning. Maybe someone will offer me a job? lol Maybe one that doesn't suck? Do those things even exist anymore? I don't even know people with degrees and résumés that enjoy their jobs, save for vapid corporate drones whose sole purpose in life is to work out and Botox their way into being Zeus' cup-bearer whilst watching reality TV and engaging in such riveting erudition as the shortcomings of this year's Seahawks' defense and whether or not that cute skinny-jean barista boy is single.

Fleeting Employment Stint

So, I worked at a Chevron four days, and everything was going pretty well ... until one Wednesday evening when I received a text including a photo of my new schedule. Instead of being off work until the weekend and then attending the lot (I'd been working the store the past couple days), I was to work Thursday through Saturday at the damn store again — bantering with customers and checking IDs and looking out for thieves. “Fuck that!” I thought reflexively, and so I no-called and no-showed.

I signed up for a part-time job, which I figured would entail at most two days on the lot and two in the store. Anyone who knows me knows that I grow agitated with prolonged exposure to my fellow human beings; it's a HUGE part of why I despise living downtown and am generally on edge any time I have to stand in a meal or food box line (or even at a grocery or convenience store). Put simply, my seemingly disintegrating legs can't handle forty hours a week of standing, and my delicate psyche can't put up with forty hours a week of human interaction.

Not only that, but I found it galling that my employer would exhibit a landed gentry mentality, treating me like some hapless, festering bumpkin of a Medieval villein. If I owned a business I would NEVER change an employee's schedule on such short notice and in mid-week like that! I would call people up and see if I could make whatever changes my employees would be amenable to, and simply work the rest of the hours the business is open; in fact, as a business owner I would be prepared to spend long hours on the job ... because that's just reality: people call in sick, quit, or what have you.

I suppose I could have weathered it out; manned up, toked my CBD for anxiety and gobbled up Tramadol® for pain, and resigned myself to a full week-long vicissitudinal schedule of incessant human traffic and commerce. Would the money have ultimately improved my life more than the work have diminished it? I don't know: I've been spoiled all these years canning: I set my own hours, work at my own pace, answer to no one greater than a very forgiving set of societal mores, and can just plug into my music and tune out (as best I can) the vexing human environment — shit pay in trade for autonomy and no obligations.

I can see how this could send certain Clackistanian Tea Party trolls into paroxysms of rage: the government pays my rent, so I don't have to grit my teeth and kowtow to a humiliatingly corrupt system wherein making ends meet means working harder at shit jobs for less every year, wherein American-Dream prosperity is a reality that flees like a dream upon awakening, even as cheap Chinese bread-and-circus crap commodities grow more expensive ... and, good luck if there's enough retirement money to buy a trailer to park on a lot full of dope fiends!

My knee-jerk response to such misplaced anger is to say “it's not my fault,” but even voting Democrat I've participated in some of the most egregious one-percent collaborating; the Clintons have been even worse finance deregulators and union busters than their prior Republicans. We're all in it together, slowly filling out little boat full of our own turds, until it's time either to wait for Sharknado or to embrace coprophilia.

Building Security

Guess who I saw enter unit #100 at around 2:55 PM earlier today? I forget his name, but a thuggish jackass who used to live in unit #204 ... until he was forcible evicted by the county sheriff. This is the second time this same chick (with perhaps the building's most annoying yappy dog) has let the guy in; who is needless to say eighty-sixed from the building. I'm telling the building manager Monday that while she doesn't do anything about it (by all rights the lady in unit #100 should be evicted!) I'm going to be bombing every single advocate and lawyer in Portland with messages beseeching aid, or at least advice or referrals. I'm tired of feeling safe only within the confines of my apartment.

Before this creep there was Liam squatting in unit #202, whose intended — and totally strung out on meth and a predatory sleazeball — occupant was reputedly languishing in a hospital. The resident never returned; Liam did twice that I saw, after he was eighty-sixed. There's been a “serious” meeting about this, in which along with the rightful occupant of #210 three others were singled out as suspected drug dealers. Then there was Richard, who used to live in the basement: he attacked a female neighbor and then repeatedly threatened the building manager's life because she filed eviction proceedings for the assault. He, too, has snuck into this building at least once. These are merely the more egregious instances: I saw a street kid crashed out in the lobby a couple Saturdays ago, and last winter I've thrice walked past small clusters of hyperlight zombies warming themselves on the stairs with their post-apocalyptically cobbled BMXs.

Poor people are goddamn riffraff, and that's a huge reason why we're despised by our blue-collar peers (who in America are, at economically, close neighbors). We just don't know how to behave: stolen bikes and piles of needles and trash in camps strewn along Springwater Corridor have cured Clackistanians of the delusion that bums and welfare rats are worth anything better than jail, three to four smashed-out car windows and screaming Four Loko-fueled domestic disputes in Wallace Park, both occurring DAILY, are doing likewise to the yuppies in Northwest Portland. This building has done it to me, too; which underscores yet again my dispute with Portland's poverty pimps' and poverty whores' monomaniacal pursuit of low-income housing “solutions” — quite a number of people simply can't be housed, except maybe in Arkham Asylum or the sunken city R'yleh.

Remember that “serious discussion” I mentioned? Nothing has come of it. If you're going to make a building safe and secure for those of us who aren't into sexual predation, violent assaults, burglary and theft, hoarding mountains of maggots shuffling in giant trash bags (wherein once were things like banana peels and empty tubs of ice cream), and slinging meth or dope (or crack), the following are absolutely necessary: security cameras in the laundry room, the trash room, the lobby, the hallways, and the stairways; and 24/7 staffing, both as a deterrent and to support residents in emergencies. There's not much more that can be done, but those two things are much more effective than a weekday daytime manager who often isn't even in her office when she's supposed to be! Oh, and cameras in the basement and the lobby; good only for confirming that yes, So And So did sneak in and out of the building, by golly!

Maybe that's the idea: make it so Wild Wild West in the hinterlands of American prosperity and civility that we all become so conveniently cutthroat and petty-greedy that we keep the professional and trade wage slaves in line ... if they were to somehow manage to lump all us terrifying sad sacks together and look at us from the news satellites out in orbit, all they would (subliminally) see are the words OBEY!!! In the meanwhile, we'll too busy victimizing each other in a world-sized snake pit to effect the positive changes our so-called betters are themselves already too willfully ignorant or cowardly to be.