Buzzards Ripped My Flesh
Mar 04, 2010 03:22 PM Filed in: Published Writing
BUZZARDS RIPPED MY FLESH
I heard the flapping first, then looked up. A couple stories above me, in the city, were vultures. They were resting on the building’s ledge and circling over the entrance. Big black nasty-looking buzzards, watching me as I walked into the building. I’m looking for work. They’re looking for food. I guess their quest is just more direct than mine.
But vultures circling me? I mean, I’ve been feeling morose, but I didn’t think it was time to pick my cadaver yet. I still move quite a bit. Maybe it’s the smell?
Here I am at the Senior Employment Center. I need to go through this experience in order to get a grant from the State of Ohio. The grant is for training. They’ll give u to $10,000 for training that will improve workers’ employability. In order to qualify, I have to convince them to admit me to the “Jobs Club.” This club meets for thirty hours and covers such topics as accessing the Internet, using Word, writing a resume, sending thank you notes.
I lost my job seven months ago. For the first time since college I’m involuntarily out of work and it couldn’t have happened in a less-pretty time for the economy. I’ve held high-level sales and business development positions for DuPont and 3M; identified, captured and managed global accounts; negotiated two acquisitions and joint ventures with a Japanese company here and a Chinese company in Quzhuo, China. My long-ago degree is in chemistry. I learned the Japanese as an adult, and earned a coveted black belt in a tough martial art just six years ago. I’m not bragging, as I present myself to you, without a job, no better than anyone else here. My point—I’m no slouch, and quite trainable.
I’m hoping for funding for a one-on-one intensive course in Chinese, from Berlitz. It’s either that, or pole-dancing, and the survey said, let’s go for Chinese. I’ve paid for this grant over the years, through my taxes, as have you. With Obamabucks being doled out, we’ll also likely be paying for years to come, as will our kids.
The Senior Employment Center is a crowded room with some hard chairs and a few terminals along the sides. Every chair is filled and there’s no obvious “do this first” indicator, though the counter to the side is a likely start.
“I’m here for the orientation session?” say I, to the woman behind the counter, the only one with whose eyes I can manage to make contact. Two forms of identification are needed, and I’ve got it licked, to my surprise. It’s not like the DMV where I never have what I need on the first visit.
My license and passport card are copied while a nose-picker next to me is registering his fingerprint in the new scanning system. Takes five scans of one finger, I hear. My turn. It doesn’t look like they clean the scanner between nasal cultures. I’m hoping the incipient swine flu brouhaha will engender a change in the procedure.
I learn my finger is now my key to check in and out each time I visit the Senior Employment Center. So, I’ve got to additionally worry that someone is going to cut off my finger to gain access and rob the place. Of what, I think. The furniture? Perhaps not. Well, fooled them anyway. I didn’t use the standard-procedure right index finger. I used a different one, I guess through sleight-of-hand, as it were. The bad guys will need to amputate a sampling of my fingers.
I’m told to fill out what feels like five or six double-sided sheets of paper with my name and formerly quite private SS number at the top of each, just in case the front of the sheet of paper somehow gets separated from the back, I suppose.
All this information minus the SS number is on my resume, but they ask for a resume only as an optional attachment, not in place of filling all the tedious longhand.
There’s no place to sit to fill this out, by the way. I guess that’s reasonable, really. Even in the private sector, the room would be built for the average capacity needed, not that needed for a peak time like now. In any case, there is one curious thing: a desk in the middle of the room with a guy sitting there. This guy isn’t doing anything at all, just sitting, though it is obviously his desk. After I’ve looked around the corner a couple of times, scanned the room some more, perhaps sighed loudly, he asks how he can help, perhaps I’m looking for a place to write, to fill out my double-sided forms? Yes, I say and he says that I can use his desk. Great, that’s so nice I say and use the desk. His job then becomes to stand up and do nothing.
Apropos of nothing, and I hesitate to include this, he’s maybe 5 feet tall and wearing a brown pinstripe zoot suit. I don’t know if I’ve got the term right, but here’s what it looks like: it’s way oversized, with the bottom of the wide-lapeled jacket reaching his knees; the pants are really big with pegged cuffs; and, it looks brand new. He’s zooted up with a tie as well. A tie for doing nothing, though the seat was warm.
I write away, then we’re eventually ushered upstairs, a group of about twenty of us. Have a seat and I’ll be with you in about five minutes says the lady upstairs. By this point, I need the bathroom—hey, it’s a Senior Center, isn’t it? She points to the wall, where two keys with oversized don’t-steal-me fobs hang, one color-coded yellow and one a greenish-brown. Perplexed, I think this telegraphs way too much information. Turns out yellow identifies the ladies’ room and brown the men’s room. My proctor didn’t seem to get my color commentary.
Back in the gathering place we’re still unoccupied. So, I whip out my informational forms and prepare to finish the task. Our leader walks in, says good afternoon and remarks how she’s so very happy to be there and looks forward to helping us.
I’m writing my last line on the forms…signature, date, etc….and I immediately hear, “Sir, please put down your pen while I’m speaking.”
I haven’t heard that said to me, especially in such a commanding tone, since about third grade. The teacher didn’t use “sir” that time, so I guess this could be a slight upgrade for me.
This is going to be a long thirty hours. Bring on the vultures.
I heard the flapping first, then looked up. A couple stories above me, in the city, were vultures. They were resting on the building’s ledge and circling over the entrance. Big black nasty-looking buzzards, watching me as I walked into the building. I’m looking for work. They’re looking for food. I guess their quest is just more direct than mine.
But vultures circling me? I mean, I’ve been feeling morose, but I didn’t think it was time to pick my cadaver yet. I still move quite a bit. Maybe it’s the smell?
Here I am at the Senior Employment Center. I need to go through this experience in order to get a grant from the State of Ohio. The grant is for training. They’ll give u to $10,000 for training that will improve workers’ employability. In order to qualify, I have to convince them to admit me to the “Jobs Club.” This club meets for thirty hours and covers such topics as accessing the Internet, using Word, writing a resume, sending thank you notes.
I lost my job seven months ago. For the first time since college I’m involuntarily out of work and it couldn’t have happened in a less-pretty time for the economy. I’ve held high-level sales and business development positions for DuPont and 3M; identified, captured and managed global accounts; negotiated two acquisitions and joint ventures with a Japanese company here and a Chinese company in Quzhuo, China. My long-ago degree is in chemistry. I learned the Japanese as an adult, and earned a coveted black belt in a tough martial art just six years ago. I’m not bragging, as I present myself to you, without a job, no better than anyone else here. My point—I’m no slouch, and quite trainable.
I’m hoping for funding for a one-on-one intensive course in Chinese, from Berlitz. It’s either that, or pole-dancing, and the survey said, let’s go for Chinese. I’ve paid for this grant over the years, through my taxes, as have you. With Obamabucks being doled out, we’ll also likely be paying for years to come, as will our kids.
The Senior Employment Center is a crowded room with some hard chairs and a few terminals along the sides. Every chair is filled and there’s no obvious “do this first” indicator, though the counter to the side is a likely start.
“I’m here for the orientation session?” say I, to the woman behind the counter, the only one with whose eyes I can manage to make contact. Two forms of identification are needed, and I’ve got it licked, to my surprise. It’s not like the DMV where I never have what I need on the first visit.
My license and passport card are copied while a nose-picker next to me is registering his fingerprint in the new scanning system. Takes five scans of one finger, I hear. My turn. It doesn’t look like they clean the scanner between nasal cultures. I’m hoping the incipient swine flu brouhaha will engender a change in the procedure.
I learn my finger is now my key to check in and out each time I visit the Senior Employment Center. So, I’ve got to additionally worry that someone is going to cut off my finger to gain access and rob the place. Of what, I think. The furniture? Perhaps not. Well, fooled them anyway. I didn’t use the standard-procedure right index finger. I used a different one, I guess through sleight-of-hand, as it were. The bad guys will need to amputate a sampling of my fingers.
I’m told to fill out what feels like five or six double-sided sheets of paper with my name and formerly quite private SS number at the top of each, just in case the front of the sheet of paper somehow gets separated from the back, I suppose.
All this information minus the SS number is on my resume, but they ask for a resume only as an optional attachment, not in place of filling all the tedious longhand.
There’s no place to sit to fill this out, by the way. I guess that’s reasonable, really. Even in the private sector, the room would be built for the average capacity needed, not that needed for a peak time like now. In any case, there is one curious thing: a desk in the middle of the room with a guy sitting there. This guy isn’t doing anything at all, just sitting, though it is obviously his desk. After I’ve looked around the corner a couple of times, scanned the room some more, perhaps sighed loudly, he asks how he can help, perhaps I’m looking for a place to write, to fill out my double-sided forms? Yes, I say and he says that I can use his desk. Great, that’s so nice I say and use the desk. His job then becomes to stand up and do nothing.
Apropos of nothing, and I hesitate to include this, he’s maybe 5 feet tall and wearing a brown pinstripe zoot suit. I don’t know if I’ve got the term right, but here’s what it looks like: it’s way oversized, with the bottom of the wide-lapeled jacket reaching his knees; the pants are really big with pegged cuffs; and, it looks brand new. He’s zooted up with a tie as well. A tie for doing nothing, though the seat was warm.
I write away, then we’re eventually ushered upstairs, a group of about twenty of us. Have a seat and I’ll be with you in about five minutes says the lady upstairs. By this point, I need the bathroom—hey, it’s a Senior Center, isn’t it? She points to the wall, where two keys with oversized don’t-steal-me fobs hang, one color-coded yellow and one a greenish-brown. Perplexed, I think this telegraphs way too much information. Turns out yellow identifies the ladies’ room and brown the men’s room. My proctor didn’t seem to get my color commentary.
Back in the gathering place we’re still unoccupied. So, I whip out my informational forms and prepare to finish the task. Our leader walks in, says good afternoon and remarks how she’s so very happy to be there and looks forward to helping us.
I’m writing my last line on the forms…signature, date, etc….and I immediately hear, “Sir, please put down your pen while I’m speaking.”
I haven’t heard that said to me, especially in such a commanding tone, since about third grade. The teacher didn’t use “sir” that time, so I guess this could be a slight upgrade for me.
This is going to be a long thirty hours. Bring on the vultures.
0 Comments