the Summer of Sanjiv

It wasn’t too long, maybe a month or so, before both my parents started grumbling about the general state of my existence and demanding that I get a job of some sort. I’ll admit the thought had crept into my head. Usually, it crept in between Jeopardy! and Rap City: Tha Bassment. Just when I was getting into a groove, too. They can be a real pair of wet blankets sometimes.

So, I started applying everywhere.

I applied to valet at a hoity-toity high-rise apartment building in downtown Dallas, but they took one look at my hairstyle (or lack thereof), thanked me for my application and said they’d keep me in mind. I mean, I think they may have been less than sincere in saying that. I don’t think they really did keep me in mind to fill the position. I think they kept my application in their waste paper basket.

Occasionally, I’d get my foot in the door, and get an interview with a manager or human resources director. At one particular restaurant, where I’d applied as a busboy, they told me I lacked the necessary experience in the service industry.

“I lack the necessary qualifications to pick up dirty dishes from the table and put them into the sink?” I thought. “Really? Because I do that for free around my house, occasionally.”

To be honest, my resume is pretty short on what one would call “real-world experience.” I didn’t realize it would be a such problem until I actually tried to find what one would call “real-world employment.” I’m sure many an employer looked on my resume, saw my two semesters working as a staff writer at my college newspaper, and thought “Oh, well that’s almost like a real job.”

Other times, they told me my BA overqualified me to work a concession stand at the movie theatre or wash dishes at a burger joint.

They were probably afraid my liberal arts background might make me a risk to their harmonious working environment. I imagine they feared that I’d start handing out literature to the other workers describing how the proletariat was being exploited, detailing how, if all the world’s oppressed united, we could topple the whole system. Or something like that.