So sue me, I make $7.50/hr

America’s favorite pastime

In the most exciting turn of events to transpire in my otherwise menial shift, I experienced my first hardcore legal altercation last night. Litigation, America’s new favorite pastime, was an entity I fortuitously avoided in my 23 years. But last night, a shallow pool five inches in diameter spurned a throw down.

It began innocently enough. Around 7:45pm a well-dressed albeit ornery retiree seeking out her favorite baked beans barged through the door and approached the counter. I directed her to the fateful aisle in the freezer section and returned to the line of customers when the “alleged incident” occurred.

Now my sister insisted that I wipe up the minor leakage from a nearby cooler, which I had done just an hour prior. While not large enough to elicit concern, the puddle was apparent enough to warrant a several inch detour. With evidently no time to spare (until the ensuing confrontation, which endured for nearly an hour), the patron waddled to the freezer “allegedly” without skirting the puddle. In hot pursuit of baked beans she “allegedly” couldn’t afford to skirt the puddle. However, according to her account, she DID NOT FALL. Being such a fine-tuned physical specimen, she evidently sensed the potential for hyper-extension in her knee and self-diagnosed several weeks of physical therapy. On the store, of course.

It’s all fun and games until someone files an accident report

Interestingly enough, when I was first summoned after the “alleged incident” she was ranting about the size of the bean containers. Perhaps that agitation aggravated her admittedly pre-existing “inner knee tendon issue.” I tried to stifle my snickers, especially when she demanded to author a statement illuminating the nature of the “alleged trauma” she endured. Still not grasping her perceived gravity, mistaking it for extreme melodrama, I passed her a discarded scrap of cardboard. No blood, no foul in my book. And, of course, I was being environmentally conscious using recycled cardboard as the vehicle for her note.

Finally, I relented and provided her with a pad on which she began to chronicle the odyssey that was her “alleged slide” down the aisle. In painfully deliberate cursive she detailed the note using her practiced lingo from “allegedly” years in the health care industry. This was clearly not her first “alleged” slip and slide and I expected that she has chased in on physical therapy on the dime of several merchants in Rhode Island.

To this contentious end, she informed me that she’s related to lawyers. Congratulations, lady, who isn’t? With this legal gesture she insisted that I sign her document, but I refused to provide my full name. I’m already suffering the ills of under-employment, I really can’t afford a legal altercation. Plus, she was threatening my livelihood, the store! As if I’d stand by and watch my nieces’ college funds be ransacked by a lunatic out for the thrills of physical therapy and litigation.

Dock my pay for gross negligence I guess

For fourteen tortuous minutes I drummed the counter waiting for my brother-in-law to arrive as she railed about our “alleged” gross negligence in the leak department and the potentially deadly consequences. I honestly didn’t anticipate any drowning in the puddle, let alone injuries. She fulminated about the therapy she would likely endure, though she managed to maneuver over to make her elaborate statement with ease. What about the therapy I will have to endure to recover from her insanity?

Through intimidation, yelling, and flat out obnoxious behavior she attempted to bully me into singing her outlandish and not legally binding statement. Instead I scrawled across the bottom that I did not witness the incident in bold capitals and printed my first name. At last my brother-in-law arrived, but she dismissed his presence as inconsequential to her as he is not a doctor. Upon his arrival she began to scribe a second interpretation of events, as if the first was not sufficiently thorough. No police report was filed but she made a photocopy of her statement about the “alleged incident” for both of our records. Thanks, I’m sure my brother-in-law will treasure it as a testament to human insanity.

The verdict

Oddly enough, the angriest party was her husband who was abandoned in the car for the duration of this “alleged incident,” and was also likely suffering the ills of several decades of marriage to this contentious beast. He stormed in and questioned her whereabouts for the past hour while he was idling in the car. She had previously mentioned they had an appointment but it was obviously not important enough to halt her quest to harangue free physical therapy.

On the plus side, none of us at the store were arrested for assault, though this woman had my fist twitching. During the proceedings, I had my sister on the phone so she could bear witness to the verbal onslaught while watching the wild gesticulations and my impatient shrugs from the surveillance camera. When the woman left, my sister admitted that despite the coverage of the cameras, the spot where the “alleged incident” occurred was actually in a blind spot, rendering no evidence in her favor.

I can’t wait for the incensed wannabe lawyer to hear that piece of evidence. I may only be a minimum wage cashier, as she pointed out, my testimony holds up as well as any other American citizen in a court of law. I was never much of a baseball fan, but I can really get into this litigation thing.

I make stumbleupon.com look linear

Bush league performance

Today is a pretty big day. By my tally, the job application I just submitted marks 40 since I’ve arrived home. And I’m humiliated to say that I’ve heard back from exactly zero. Of course you get the customary email thanking you for your submission into the abyss, following by the glaring warning DO NOT REPLY BACK to this message. Evidently providing the status of an application is just too daunting a task for an HR department devoted to screening applicants. I did call on one occasion and was informed that a glorified secretarial position at a popular DC institute had received 400 applicants. So I guess I’m out of contention was her curt implication. I haven’t had an interview since April.

Batting 0-40 is usually grounds for being sent down to the minors, and I suppose my cashier job is the working world equivalent despite my college stats. Trying not to get discouraged, I constantly conceive of new strategies, new networking possibilities, and new career prospects.

D, all of the above

Most recently I’ve resorted to stalking my new neighbor under the suspicion that he has an eminent job at a national company headquartered in Rhode Island. Obviously (in my delusional mind) this particular company would be interested in hiring a female economics major and a product of the state public education system until college. Why am I pursuing this stranger so desperately? I don’t have any desire to remain in Rhode Island. Chalk it up to the thrill of the chase. Business, banking, writing, I can’t make up my mind and don’t have any offers even if I did.

This is a far cry from my pre-college dream of being a journalist, or an initial dalliance into anthropology that inspired me to become documentary film maker. Then I found economics, and was resigned to selling my soul to corporate, if only to cash out by 40. I tired of that route and considered teaching, then becoming a professor. When real internships were mandated by junior year, I circled back to the corporate world but tried consulting for its variety. That was acceptable for a summer, but restlessness in the cube thrust me into event-based marketing.

Somehow, a year into that job I was still languishing in the cube and reverted back to the aspiration of a PhD program and professorship. A few university tours later and I was back to sulking in my cube. My departure from corporate America and sudden evaporation of cash flow propelled me west, but a lack of opportunity still had me seeking adventure. I must have missed the press release that the new tag line for the military is “the few, the proud, the non-asthmatic” so my attempt to see the world and contribute to something significant was halted. This blog is a manifestation of my old journalistic tendencies, but my job applications are still filed for primarily analyst positions for banks I’ve never heard of in cities I’d rather not visit.

Casting call

My childhood dream of going to the Olympics still nags at me, and there are days when I want to abandon conventional society and live as a beach bum (until I realize I’d have to move to the South, immediately negating that prospect). I endeavor to go to London for graduate school but have no particular aim in doing so. It’s just a romanticized conception of becoming an ex-pat that soothes my disenchanted psyche.

Only a month into under-employment, I can’t afford to relent. I whip out my resume in public and unabashedly inform strangers that I’m seeking work to spark the realization that they need to hire a 2009 grad with a BA in economics and strong verbal skills. People get discovered for movie roles on the street, so why can’t the next person who walks through the convenience store door offer me a job commensurate with my abilities? That seems like a more likely plot than stardom. Otherwise, I will resort to trying my luck in L.A.

I'm a hustler

Hustling hard all day

In the interest of padding my minimum wage work week, I’ve been contracted out to my brother-in-law’s catering truck. Specialties include any variety of ways to induce a coronary, from $1.50 to $4.00.

My favorite transaction involves a guy squandering half of an hour’s pay on one energy drink fueling a placebo-effect high. When I wasn’t fading in and out of consciousness in advanced microeconomic theory, I learned that optimum social welfare is achieved by allowing individuals to allocate their own funds, instead of dictating spending through subsidies. Something tells me aggregate social welfare is not maximized when a warehouse full of men is hopped up on Monster and racing toward 5pm.

Who am I to judge? I’m picking up hours anyway I can with a car to support and the lingering hope that I’m going to have to put my savings toward moving expenses in the very near future. And if I need to be fueled by an over-priced energy drink to keep ringing up more of the same, so be it.

TGIM

Cobbling together all of these hours, weekends have become inconsequential to me. They once divided otherwise endless work weeks, signaled impending hangovers, and initiated poor decisions. Now I bum around with my middle aged roommates begging for a family drive or challenging my mom to Bananagrams. I may as well hang it up and head to the retirement home, and I would gladly do so were it not for the absence of the all-important nest egg. All my issues come back to a lack of stable employment…

What’s worse, the weekends render my job hunt useless. What’s the point of depositing an HR email in the inbox Saturday morning, only for my carefully crafted words to be buried by Monday? So I sit and mull restlessly about a lack of prospects and panic until Monday when I can again torture the hiring departments of every Fortune 500 company (and most of those that didn’t even make the list).

It’s not like I require additional rest over the weekend. In fact, I grapple with the other convenience store employees for possession of the vaunted time and a half Sunday shifts. I’m miserable anyway, may as well be miserable at close to $11/hour- that puts a little extra pep in my “would you like a bag?” Plus, the extra hours really sway my productivity-to-nothingness ratio for the better. I’m on the verge of a 40/60 differential. Just weeks ago, the ratio was somewhere around 10/90, with that ten corresponding to trips to get a drink or throw something away.

Leave it to Beaver lied

So many people operate on this unconventional work week that my Leave it to Beaver conception of the “real world” is imploding. Guys at the catering stops are clamoring for burgers at 8am and my closing at the store is the start of some of my customers’ day. Where have I been in the last 23 years that I’ve avoided this nocturnal crowd acknowledging the moon with a sun salutation and traipsing off to work on a Sunday without demanding overtime?

My sister called it- I’m a bubble child. But I’m learning, and while that’s not hedging against my car loan, I can take these examples to the proverbial bank. Probably get better interest than my current savings account, too.

As today is Monday, I will resume my deluge of resume dropping after distributing Monsters to the factory workers of Northern RI.

Employee Stimulus Envelope

More forceful than UN sanctions

Of late, I’m being admonished for the condition of the store after my closing shift. I follow the same parameters as every other closing cashier, but my particular performance has been singled out as unsatisfactory. Bold move from those depending on my sister’s employment to support their livelihoods, so my indiscretions must be blatant.

Sure, I spend a bit more time than most waving to my niece over the surveillance camera, reading the AP news wire, and jotting notes on my BlackBerry, but I’m pretty conscientious about my cleaning. Even my mom has remarked on my increased effectiveness on the home front. Being the czar of domestic cleanliness, I was feeling confident about my new found abilities with a broom and rag.

Want fries with that?

Being the newest addition to the store, I elected not to take offense to this comment. I instead took this as an opportunity to learn about corporate protocol. After all, what’s the value of a brand experience if not expected conditions and consistency. The golden arches may not promise a Capital Grille caliber meal, but you’re rarely surprised. The occasional rodent, heart attack, and recall notwithstanding, people take stock in the safety of stopping at a McDonald’s anywhere in the world. Why not mimic the characteristics of the world’s most prolific fast food chain? Maybe we could institute a short training session on the values of our store and corporate policy…

My sister shot me down immediately on the grounds of the overtime demanded by the additional meeting. Fine, we’re not aiming for McDonald’s status, I get it. And I guess those stock options I was offered were a joke. But let’s at least outline some proactive solutions.

The next day I’m confronted with a new list attached to my check in an all-encompassing “employee stimulus envelope” (clever managers). By new I mean the same scribbled list, just typed and attached to a clipboard, obligating closers to check off every task accomplished. This list is already huge obstacle to my goal of escaping as close to 10pm as possible every evening. The list also included several issues pertaining to protocol that reflect some insidious issues in the workplace.

Text message break-ups

Text message break-ups are universally recognized as the epitome of pathetic. The meaning is clear, you can’t be bothered. Your time is too precious or you’re just too fragile to withstand the emotional turmoil of separation. So an employee “resignation” via text was vehemently targeted on the new code of conduct. The menacing paper also further reprimanded my cell phone use at the register. It seems we also have to look presentable, which is going to add another 2 minutes to my pre-work preparations and really cut into my “doing nothing” time.

We must recycle cartons of cigarettes to use for signs, because evidently the pile of already destroyed trees in the form of notepads in the back is being horded for kindling. This mode of recycling is the equivalent of carbon offsets for cancer sticks, I suppose.

Personal phone calls are to be kept to a minimum. This poses a huge conflict in my otherwise harmonious work-family relationship. When my sister calls, should I treat her as the boss, and ignore those at the register to address urgent business matters? Or should I dutifully hang up on her, as I would my sister, to avoid violating company policy?

Working overtime

I’m not sure how my sister had the time to detail such an extensive list. Before heading to work yesterday, I stopped by her house then slowly backed away as I heard her cooing “please don’t throw up on me” to my four month old niece. The last time I heard that, it was uttered miserably in the after-hours of a killer party. Add that to my list of reasons never to have children, but not to the list of employee conduct, that’s sufficiently full.

The new checklist was sugar-coated with an array of gift cards to local businesses. I was excluded from the drawing, a shot of anti-nepotism that will keep me on my cell for the entire shift.

Cashing Out

What a difference a year makes

May 17, 2009: I was suffering the emotional assault of finals, senior week, and graduation with a smile. From my perch at the end of the alphabet of my graduating class, I was considering an elite private college as $200,000 well spent. It was 2009 and while the Dow continued to plummet my hopes were buoyed. Of course I would remain friends with my classmates for life. It was understood that after my first million I would donate a new wing to a building. If I could just endure the litany of platitudes from speakers neglecting the collective hangover of my class, I would happily retreat from the green to clean out my room and wish my friends well. After all, I had a JOB, the three-letter word that sent ‘09’ers racing to the career office in fits of hysteria. Of course, my employment was nothing glamorous. One tier above fetching coffee, I was hired on a limited basis but was optimistic about the prospects for advancement. “Limited term” was an issue of semantics. After a week’s reprieve from college, I raced off to my miniature studio apartment.

Magna cum laude to cashier-a slippery slope

I made new friends, travelled the country, gained access to events I’d only seen on TV, and secured the promotion to remain with my company. I also languished in a drab cubicle, underutilized- the plight of most entry-level positions. My intellectual property rights were hijacked to the point of an idea being patented without my knowledge. A mercenary to international marketing campaigns, I lived at hotels for weeks operating on minimal sleep. On the few weekends I was free from work, I hemorrhaged my meager wages in New York City. Among my friends, the fact that I boasted a “cool job” was the consensus, but it did little to pay the rent. After nearly a year, I considered grad school, begged for a transfer, and finally worked up the gumption to leave the job that marked the pinnacle of my college career. Of course a deluge of applicants immediately filled the ungrateful vacuum I vacated. Suddenly I was no longer on a trajectory to make Fortune 500 by 25. In fact, leaving my job represented first deviation in the great “plan” I engineered early in life to guarantee enormous success.

Graduation was almost frenetic with promise. Fast forward to 13 months later, and I’m skulking around my parents’ house demanding to know what “we” are doing for the day. There’s no need to ask, the schedule is rigid. I wake up with purpose, only to remember that business casual is not mandatory for the unemployed. I run on the same paths I prodded on in high school, do errands with my mom praying to avoid anyone who anticipated that I would be immediately successful, and devote the duration of the day to futile online job searches.

I’m 23. My “we” formerly consisted of a peer network in New York City and the freedom to explore everything at my disposal. I traded the world’s most cosmopolitan metropolis for suburbia in search of a new job and the hope for relocation to what I deemed the Promised Land: Colorado. Thankfully, my capable sister and her industrious husband recently acquired a convenience store and penciled me in the schedule as a cashier. That position seemed fairly commensurate with my qualifications as an economics major, and shockingly not a dramatic pay cut.

Training day

My sister obviously took not-so-secret pleasure in outfitting her formerly over-achieving sister with the awkward fitting red piqued polo and delineated the code of conduct. To date, my most frequent violation is undoubtedly texting on the job. The no-cell-on-the-register rule is in direct conflict with my compulsion to keep my BlackBerry visible at all times, like a signal of my perceived self-importance.

Duties must be fairly standard across these establishments. Politely make change for patrons and tidy up fastidiously when free. At the end of the night, ensure $100 of opening cash is in the register. Ostensibly I make sweeping an art form and use more Windex than the cast of My Big Fat Greek Wedding; in actuality I’m fantasizing about get-rich-quick schemes and if it’s truly too late to make an obscure Olympic team. I observe the patrons who shop at least once daily, blue collar individuals who subsist on the daily exchange of minimum wage for white bread and milk. I smile graciously when they discard change in the Take-a-Penny jar, even when my sister chides me that the coins are not a tip. The accumulation of spare change vindicates my shift and distracts me from sweeping curdled raw meet from the deli recesses.

Riding bikes and walking to work as I coast into the parking lot in a car I can hardly afford, my coworkers are among the most dedicated individuals I’ve ever encountered. Some are single parents; one has six children and two grandchildren monopolizing her resources. Obligated to work two jobs, often overnight, it’s not surprising that at 36 she has had a heart attack and has no financial recourse but to continue. They maintain a tenable pride in the community and their daily efforts to support local needs. I can’t afford to demonstrate disdain in my under-employment in the face of coworkers with such conviction.

Dwindling ROI

My parents call it paying your dues; I call it disillusionment and a poor return on investment of intellectual capital. Admittedly, I lived (and continue to enjoy) a charmed life. Suburban upbringing, encouraging family, private college, the trifecta for anticipated success. I always had part-time jobs growing up, from scoring basketball games to shelving books at the public library, through interning at various consulting firms during summer breaks from college. Yet somehow, sixteen years of high-achievement in school renders me grappling for shifts with people trying to feed their families on minimum wage. It doesn’t take my over-priced economics degree to realize that something has gone awry with the American financial system.

Granted, much of my dismay is self-inflicted. Perhaps my expectations were grossly misappropriated, and I did elect to leave my job. I mistakenly thought my credentials and improving economic conditions would result in a new job in a new city by the fall. Instead, my roughly 40 recently submitted resumes have yet to register a response from online databases, absorbing my qualifications into a black hole of unemployed oblivion.

I’m fortunate. My parents are generous and understanding, providing the support to continue searching. Most members of the class of 2009 are not as lucky, and are relegated to jobs that pay the rent instead of pursuing the increasingly elusive American Dream. I read years ago that our generation would be the first not to exceed the standard of living achieved by our parents. I’m certainly glad I savored my childhood, but refuse to abandon hope of one day becoming a mogul.

Can I get a "hell yeah" from all the econ majors of '09?