Faking enthusiasm
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

I'm combing the job market yet again. My two or three day a week job has once again said they cannot provide me any shifts. While I relish having several days off, I'm not financially stable enough to play around with weeds in my hair and dirt on my socks all the time. Like most, I have to pay for rent, utilities, and food. Everything else is a luxury, but I still need six hundred bucks a month.

Six hundred bucks a month. It doesn't sound like that much. Actually, let's make it seven hundred just so I can go to a ball game and rent old Woody Allen movies to pretend I'm a writer.

It's not like I've never worked in my life. I have had a number of jobs with absolutely no connection with each other. A cashier for a 24-hour diner, a semi loader for UPS, a kennel worker and dog food delivery man, an assistant at a homeless shelter, and, lately, taking care of mentally and behaviorally frustrated children. What does that make me qualified to do? I have no idea.

Even though I worked each of those jobs for reasonable amounts of times, I can't in all honesty admit I enjoyed them. They were means for obtaining my seven hundred dollars a month, and I could do the jobs adequately if not better.

So what do I want to do? If I could get away with reading all the good literature, listening to inspiring music, walking around in a loose pair of shorts, and coming up with obscure and entertaining fictional stories, I would take that job in a second. Of course, not too many people get paid for what they do in their free time. That's why it's called free time.

Now I have to dress snazzier, fill out application after application explaining my education, employment experience, and three references to my character. Maybe I'll get an interview and have to fake some enthusiasm for the job. One question always asked by interviewers is "Why do you want to come and work for us?" No matter what you say, just make sure your answer is not "I need seven hundred dollars a month, so I can continue to live without bank loans and credit card debts." You won't get the job that way.

While everyone works jobs for money, no employer wants to hear that little tidbit of truth. They enjoy phrases like "I've always been interested in the renting out of pornographic material and making the customer happy," "Waiting tables brings out the best qualities I have to offer," and "There is no doubt selling insurance is the most noble profession a man like myself could ever obtain, and by hiring me, you'd be making all of my dreams come true. Bless you and your fully-covered family." That may be a bit too much, but it's better to pour it on a little thick rather than coming off nonchalant.

I don't relish most forms of employment. I can, however, tolerate most for a little while. I've shoveled shit (literally), picked up heavy boxes and stacked them on other heavy boxes, burned my fingers on chicken fryer oil while cleaning the cookers, tied emotionally out of control children in restraints, told drunk and belligerent homeless folks to leave while it was less than thirty degrees outside, and many other less than stellar deeds of which I'm sworn to secrecy. All in the attempt of getting seven hundred dollars a month, so I can spend the rest of my time writing pieces few people will ever read.

Even though it stinks to look for jobs, there is always something out there. All you have to do is get desperate enough. Morals and dignity are the first things to go when getting a job. All in the feeble attempt to be among the ranks of the employed.

I've never been on welfare, but I can see the attraction. Someone else flipping the bill for your existence. Unfortunately, that someone happens to be the government, and I figure I shouldn't take money from an entity I'm not always fond of. Besides, it would just give Republicans a reason to yell at me and Democrats a reason to pity me. I'd rather stay clear of all of those reindeer games.

Maybe I should stop saying what I think and become one of those columnists who obsesses over Ken Starr, Linda Tripp, Chinese influences, and Clinton, Clinton, Clinton every week. Every week! I guess I could get engrossed by such topics and rant on them all the time, but I'm unemployed right now and looking for seven hundred dollars.

Chris Jungle has been babbling to the faceless masses for four years without hardly any monetary compensation. How's that for job dedication?

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