NEW GRADUATE, NEW JOB!

HOW I GOT MY FIRST JOB

        I have no idea what I said that got the hospital director to call me or how many others had turned it down before me, but I finally got the job!

        I was an honor student at a good school and had every indication of a promising career ahead.  But when I graduated, the economy was depressed and nobody seemed to be hiring.  I had so many rejection letters—that was back when employers still sent them—that I joked I could wallpaper my bathroom wall with them.  Today as job applications seem to veer off into outer space via the world wide web, the silence can be just as deafening.

        I graduated in August and by November the funds were running low—very low—in my student accounts.  There were days when I decided whether to eat or take the quarters and buy the Sunday papers for the classified job ads.  I had studied public policy, specifically manpower policy, and I knew about job search skills.  When I interviewed for a job to help others find work, the job coach interviewing me asked why I hadn’t yet found a job.  I could have answered the question in a million savvy ways, but that day, I burst into tears.  I was so despondent.  Needless to say, although the job coach was sympathetic, I didn’t get that job!

        Oh, and then there was the interview with the state director in volunteer services.  I was thrilled with the job and the interview.  Everything went smashingly well and I fully anticipated a job offer.  But the director called a day or so later and told me he “liked me too much and he was concerned about working in such close proximity.”  Ever the professional, I said, “I’m sure we can work around that.”  But he wouldn’t budge.  Thanks to sexual harassment and civil rights laws, this type of thing is less frequent or at least more hidden these days.

        Then there was the opportunity to work in Detroit’s inner city with x-offenders.  I was game, even when a six foot, 250 pound female client towered above me, pounding her fists yelling, “What does a small town white girl from the middle class have to teach me?”  I actually was offered this job and I seriously considered it until the director told me he made several overnight trips and I’d be expected to accompany him in the same hotel room for budgetary reasons!  You’ve got to be kidding.  I figure he had somebody else in mind and this was his way of getting me to refuse the offer so he could hire the person he preferred.

        And finally there was one last interview before the BIG OFFER at a well known private psychiatric center.  I was escorted to lunch through a dreary, green institutional hallway and left to dine alone after being seated across from a client.  The staff shared that the client’s arms were tied to his wheel chair because he likes to throw his food.  I gave him a cheery hello and he glared back at me.  I attempted a few other polite, mindless-chatter comments, hoping to make contact and allay his discomfort.  But instead I watched him take aim.  Again and again, he lifted his spoon full of mashed potatoes as high as he could, and all through lunch, he flung them at me.  He never took his glowering eyes off me and he stayed completely silent—just glare-load-aim-fire.  Fortunately, his potato shots fell like duds on his plate.  When I finished eating, in what seemed like eternity, I thanked him for dining with me and fled.  Later when another lock down client asked me why I wanted to work there, my “I like people” reply sounded hollow even to me.

        At long last, I did get a job, not even the best job, but one that kept me afloat and provided the next step forward: I became a training coordinator in a small rural hospital.  With only a few bucks left in my pocket, I was called, interviewed and hired on the spot. I’m clueless. As far as I can see it didn’t have much to do with me and most everything to do with the needs of the hospital at that particular time.  The director just thought we would be a good fit.  And indeed we were.

        I only stayed there for a couple of years.  But the people in the community were wonderful to me.  One morning I awoke to find four Mennonite women from the local community planting my garden.  As a single working woman, at my first job, getting groceries into the house was a feat.  To see them in my garden, loving me, caring for me and easing my way, brought me to tears again.  But this time the tears were tears of gratitude for all I had been given.

        Through my experience I grew in appreciation for the ways that people retain their dignity, sometimes through the worst of circumstances.  I watched how others posed challenges to me and my own sense of worthiness.  I learned to keep going and not give up, even when everything seemed dire.  And mostly, I grew in compassion for myself and others.  As the old Joan Baez song reminds me, ‘but for grace, there go I.”  I awake now to an ever deepening sense of thanksgiving and gratitude.