Rutgers!!

Ahhhh....... :) After five years, three applications, a whole host of struggles thoroughly documented on this blog, and a whole lot of work fostering relationships with faculty there, I have finally been accepted to Rutgers Anthropology program!  :)  I can not tell you how big of a deal this is to me.  As my mom said, the only other thing in my life that really compares is being offered a place on the West Virginia Football team when I was a senior in high school.  At that point in my life I had been working for all 17 of my years to make myself the best athlete I could.  It was my dream to play Division I football, and on a trip to Morgantown, WV the recruiting coordinator extended his hand and an offer to play for them.  They had finished third in the country that year, and I was going to be playing for them.  I'd worked so hard, endless days running, catching, pushing myself to physical exhaustion - fighting both to make myself better, and against all the people that said I'd never be able to to it.  But I did, I made it.  And while what I did with that opportunity involves a lot of youthful indecision, and adult regrets, I learned from it.  And now I will be going to "play" at one of WVU's former Big East rivals!

I wasn't expecting much more from Rutgers than I got last year when I was put on their waiting list again this year, but over the last week they'd sent me a few hints that I needed to still be patient.  I didn't want to think to much in to it and start hoping, but I did return to their website and reenvision myself there if even just to be able to compare with Binghamton.  I spent most of this week in Binghamton, and was going to be writing a blog post about that visit today, however that post has just been high-jacked by a phone call I got while nestled in the depths of 25 Central Park West's servants entrance to apartment 7Q.  I'd just rung the doorbell to the servants' entrance with no answer, the guy the takes you up the elevator and monitors that you don't go crazy or steal things, decided to try the front door just as my phone rang.  A 908 area code, Jersey!  It was not stored in my phone.  Immediately I thought of Rutgers and said F-it, I've gotta take this.  I answered and it was the director of graduate studies.  Immediately I thought, there's NO way he'd be making a personal call to me to say I did NOT get accepted!!  He then said, "I'm not sure if you've read your emails" (I said I hadn't), but I wanted to give you an actual phone call to offer you a position in our program, with funding."  I can't even explain the emotions I felt, the senses, the moment, it all went hazy, emotional, exuberant.  I couldn't express to him enough how great it was to hear this!  I quickly had to tell him though that I was at work and couldn't talk, but said I would check my email and try to get back to him if I got a chance while at work!  

The funny thing though, was that I didn't say yes on the spot.  I knew better given past mistakes, like the decisions I made involving leaving football at WVU. Thus I now always sleep on any decision of consequence.  Also, one of the first things that ran through my head was Binghamton.  I had just spent two full days attending classes, meeting professor, and feeling comfortable with a future there.  They have such great people.  The students, the faculty, the administrators.  I really enjoyed my time there, and know there are a lot of things that I could do there, even things I couldn't do at Rutgers.  A radical department for a radical scholar such as myself!  But my emotions and innate reaction to this news from Rutgers didn't allow for a decision, wei wu, action without action.  My body, mind, and soul knew right then and there were I was going to school.  I don't know how I am going to tell the people at Binghamton.  But I told them this may be the decision I had to make and that it would be tough to turn down a top ten Anthropology program.  But it is not just that.  The offer comes with four years of funding.  The first year in the form of a fellowship for $22,000, and the next three as a Teaching Assistant fro $26,000 per year. There is a full tuition remission and healthcare throughout.  While the cost of living is less in Binghamton, their three years at $15,000 per and a tuition remission, is still less, nevermind that I'd then have to pay for healthcare there.  But all told, its a no-brainer, and the people I met there, that either were honest about the two options or were in Anthropology and knew what Rutgers had to offer, thought I'd be crazy to even consider it!  But to me, I think the main difference is the organization and faculty mentoring at Rutgers.  Binghamton is largely self directed (a big positive), but with discombobulated support and institutional structures/guidelines.  I never got the same story from anyone regarding what the process exactly entailed with their evaluation process and their "area papers", but it wouldn't have kept me from going there, especially as they are actively working to rectify it.  I felt very confident that I could have navigated the program.  I did get a lot of students that said they struggled to find a "mentoring" role from above, that guidance was sporadic and dependent.  One faculty member when directly asked about mentorship said "oh, we definitely mentor students that we believe in" [my italics].  At Rutgers, I felt like there was so much love.  Students, and faculty alike.  I felt like they genuinely seemed to care about me, especially the second time around when I went to open house this year.  Even the offer email says:  "We are a program that values close mentoring relationships between faculty and students, a supportive rather than competitive environment, and a rich and lively community of scholars."  This is not to say I would not get that from Binghamton faculty.  I met several that I immediately clicked with.  And BU is not a bad program.  It's full of a history of truly revolutionary scholarship and hopefully a wonderful future.  I am finding this really difficult to write as I had such a wonderful time there.  To look the people in the eyes that I stayed with, talked with, had a drink with, and say I'm not coming will be tough.  There is so much talent there, and so much I would have learned.  I will have to figure out how to stay involved with them, but like I said, my body knew where I was going as soon as I got off the phone.  My heart has always been with Rutgers.  A program that embodies me in every which way shape and form.  And I will even get to go to the football games!! 

I called everyone, and smiled for the rest of the day.  Even now, I can't stop talking about it...  ;)     

Much Respect Due

So within my new job I have had to work the cash register.  Wow.  I never knew how much respect the people doing that deserve.  Eight hours a day, five days a week.  I just did a two day stint and I tell you my body feels it.  My neck, my legs, feet, etc.

They have a very defined and regimented protocol for the register there.  When you get in, you go to the supervisors counter and get a little red bag full of the money for your register.  $288 in cash and change.  You count it, and put it in your drawer.  You get to your register, sign in, deposit your cash drawer in one of the two slots, and start ringing up people.  You do this then for hours.  You stand on the hard ground and just move your upper body back and forth, with only your hands using the touch screen device to enter produce PLU numbers, scan items, bag groceries, smile and send people on their way.

These shifts are eight and a half hours long, with a half hour unpaid break and a fifteen minute paid break.  I can tell you this too, you need those breaks.  You are not allowed to eat anything at the registers, but you can have water.  To go to the bathroom you have to call the supervisor and ask permission.  Usually you get to go right on the spot, sometimes you have to wait your turn while others are going.  I haven't been told no yet, but with a long line I could imagine someone may ask you to wait.  Talking among cashiers is discouraged and reprimanded.  It is agonizing physically, and trying mentally.

The first two hours seem to go fairly quickly.  You are ringing up people constantly and not physically hurting yet.  But all the concentration and standing takes a progressive toll.  My concentration and blood sugar levels seem to drop after a while and my ability to concentrate wains exponentially.  This is an obvious problem given the draconian policies for miss counting or not have you bills the right way in your drawer.  I have dyslexic moments, but so far I think they have been typing in the right produce code, and you can go back and change it.  But what happens when you have one with the cash?  I was short yesterday 80 cents on one transaction.  It was 62.84 and the woman gave me 65.04, I typed in 62.04 by accident, my mind was in a fog by that point, and the woman was really pushy.  She was treating me like I was just another subservient worker - beneath her - as is a common occurrence it seems.  She was saying its simple, the change is three dollars, she was wrong, but I didn't realize it until later.  I typed in another $3 to make the $65.04, her change should have been $2.20, and it said this, but the woman was bitching and badgering about $3 while I was trying to figure out my mistyped amount.  I gave her three only to realize a moment to late after she'd gone that it should have been $2.20 as it all added up.

I now see how common these interactions are.  Because this is a hard job.  It is so sad that all too often customers treat people at the register like morons because the type in the wrong PLU code, or miscount the change.  I would love to see all these executives and office types come down here and spend eight hours a day on their feet doing the same repetitive motion, counting on the fly, bagging, and scanning over and over for eight and a half hours.

To each customer this is their money, their food, their pain in the ass exercise in sustenance that they have to do, and want to do as quickly as possible between their jobs and getting home or to play in their free time.  They eagle eye you and have little remorse for the slightest mistake.  The cashier on the other hand is staring at a screen all day, doing the same thing over and over.  I have never had such acute blood sugar issues as with this job.  I have to eat something every two hours or I'm lost.  And I can feel it, I end up in this fog that is almost surreal.  Like you barely see the money and PLU codes as they fly by your eyes and hands.  I usually recognize the issue and grab my water or sneak a little something to get the sugar back.

Customers though don't see these ins and outs of the job.  They see the singular action, and see it as simple.  They don't see the eight hours and the pressure put on you for your job by the company.  They treat you like you are stupid because you are counting the change, reentering the PLU code or fiddling with the bag.  No, I think it's safe to say that the general public has little respect for this work, hence its low pay and prestige.  Apparently one customer who had to call over the manager at one point said to her daughter that she needed to go to school so she didn't end up as a cashier.  Right in front of the cashiers.  It is really sad to hear that, sad for society.  Yet still this is the society we live in.  A place where "menial labor" garners no respect even from those that so deeply and heavily rely on it for the very existence.  Whether you work for a company that employs cheap labor, or buy products that cheap labor makes cheap for you the world goes no where without people like supermarket cashiers, and its hard work, just like digging a ditch, mopping floors, building a roof, whatever.  Much respect due.  

The laws of the register

So I am going through training on the cash register for my new job. Wow. I don't ever want to be behind the register. I am scared to death of the draconian rigidity of the terms and rules, and how quickly the slightest slip – like not having all the bills facing the right direction – can lead to getting warned and fired.

They work on a system of a written warning, a final warning, and discharge.  In terms of being absent or tardy if you are:

• 3 times in 30 days, 
• 4 times in 90 days, 
• 5 in 6 months or, 
• 10 in a year,

you will be given a written warning that lasts for a year.  This includes sick days (though back-to-back days only count as one "incident").  If this happens you are on written warning for a year.  If in that time this or any other issue happens again (see below), you get a final warning (which last six months).  If in this time anything else happens you are "discharged" (i.e. fired).

So what is included in this?  Well with the register you are accountable to balancing your till.  If you are a penny off one way or the other 5 times in 30 days its a written warning.  Meaning no take a penny leave a penny, and if you're off by more than $5 on any one occasion it is an immediate written warning.  This means that you count wrong once, accept a counterfeit bill, whatever... you're on warning.  But it gets worse.  If within a 30 day period you have 5 instances of any of the below issues:

• excessive coins or cash
• bills not facing the right direction
• missing a coupon
• missing an EBT slip
• missing voided transaction slip
• miss entering a product code
• improperly filling out a traveler's check
• talking to the cashier next to you
• not asking to go to the bathroom
• coming back even a minute late on a break
• looking at someone the wrong way....... breathing.... ok, so I made that one up.

But really?!  You don't place the bills face up and all in the same direction!?!?!? or give someone a penny!?!?! and your in trouble!?  Enter the wrong code, give back the wrong change and in trouble you get!!!  No sir, not me.  Keep me off of that register.  My dyslexic, hypoglycemic ass would be done in a week.  I mean hypothetically speaking (and keep in mind schedules only come out Wednesday for the next week), if someone is late or sick more than 5 times in 6 months (keep in mind NYC subways, doctors, dentists, kids), and they don't put their bills all face up a few times and then take a counterfeit bill by accident, they're done.  No flexibility, only a lashing with the whip.  Amazing.    

Blue Collar State of Mind

So one thing that I did want to bring attention to with my new job is my inherent regression into ethnography.  I am working as a delivery boy.  This is of course not commensurate with my place in society - as an educated white man.  When I am out and about as a "white man" of seemingly respectable capacity, I am treated a certain way.  This became incredibly evident to me throughout my involvement with Occupy and the daily awareness of my place of power in the socio-economic system.  In those circles I am constantly reminded of it every day.  This is why it was so eye-opening - and dare I say refreshing - to be treated as just another blue collar worker once I donned my delivery apron and hat.

There are of course two aspects to this.  There is the way random people and the people you are delivering to treat you, and the way you are treated by other workers such as doormen.  No one really wants to be talked down to, or have assumptions made about them that aren't nice, but we all know this is bound to happen though.  The interesting thing for me is that knocking on doors as a delivery person immediately places you in a category that I am not in otherwise given the general demographic makeup of the delivery profession.  For example there was a woman the other day in a penthouse apartment that when I knocked on the door was very deliberately trying to not let me see in her apartment.  She came out and closed the door behind her, overtly showing an apprehension to me and what I might see on quick glimpse in corner penthouse apartment on the 40 something floor.  Now obviously there is a large amount of speculation here as to her motives.  But having been in the situation and reading it, I can only say that this was the way I felt and my interpretation given the visual and verbal cues I received, and coupled with my own place in society and thoughts.  Yet still, I felt that she did not want me to see in her apartment and also an apprehension towards me.  But hey, for all I know she had a cat in there or a naked man!  lol.

Anyway, my point is that if I was someone living in the building, or someone (eg. the person I am when I don't have my delivery hat on) that was not presumptively of lower income, but stereotypically of higher need/propensity to be "casing" the place, would she have acted to skeptically and with such reprehension?  My suspicion - however prejudiced it may be - is no she probably would not have.  Apprehensive of a stranger yes I'm sure, but if I came with a suit on and a handshake, versus an apron and an eye towards a tip, responses would be different.

Regardless though, this incident was not so much my main point as the way I am treated by other workers.  At pretty much every door thus far people have been friendly and good to me, offering both smiles and often enough tips.  But the big thing for me is the acceptance as a worker that I receive.  When I walk around my neighborhood - which is predominantly black - I am a white guy.  To the average person I am just another gentrifier.  I have to open my mouth and hope that my words sell me and allow me entry into "their club".  And my words do around here, hence my relationship with my bar and others.  However, always at first glimpse I am what I look like.

This is the same throughout the rest of my life.  When I walk into a high rise/rent building in midtown Manhattan when I'm not working, I look like I "should" live there (and yes, these people are pre-ju-dice). Door men treat me a certain way with lots of yes sirs.  And when I walk in to a upscale supermarket like where I now work I am treated the same, like just another wealthy enough white shopper.  But the minute I don that delivery apron and name tag, its like I am transformed into just another guy.  A guy that can be joked with, cursed with, and that other workers of similar stature can let their guard down with.

For me this is truly refreshing.  I do not feel comfortable in wealthier settings or with people of means and "proper" decor   I am much happier sitting around talking with people living real lives, with real struggles, that can just let themselves be free of some of those decorum things.  When I went to Binghamton and was sitting at a table of graduate students I had to be "educated", "intelligent", "on".  With "regular" people I can just be me.  I don't have to sell myself, I don't have to exude skill, competence  or confidence.  I can just relax.

The amazing thing about this is that as regular Tim Weldon I have to prove myself and work to get to this level of dialog with people, but as a delivery boy, I seem to innately already be there.  I can talk how I want, am talked to how they want, and talk about whatever any one of us wants.  There is also an inherent understanding and seeming bond through the unspoken struggle with power that is innately understood amongst "workers".  Statements about the people living there, the way they treat people, the way we are treated.  Mechanics, doormen, shop workers, janitors, whatever.  It is an ease of mentality and a welcome place of respite from the rest of the world that somehow thinks that because I am a white man that I should both be a certain way and be treated a certain way.  I like being a delivery boy, it lets me - if even just for a moment - be me with the people most like me.  

Work!!

So I officially have a job!  I had an interview a little bit back with a large health foods supermarket retailer and am very happy to say I have gotten the job.  I will be doing delivery in and around midtown Manhattan of groceries.  It is not the greatest job in the world - and not lost on me that it is the same job I had in High School - but it is steady work in a good company with room to grow.

I just had orientation this past week, and it was actually quite refreshing.  I spent two days learning about food and environmental justice, GMO's, the importance of buying local, eating good healthy foods, etc.  It was not really anything new to me at all, but there were some new tidbits that helped.  For the most part I was answering all the questions in the class and adding stuff to the teacher's discourse.  But for me it was great to get to the end of the day and say hey, they are not saying anything here that I really disagree with.

Yes, they are still a business and still are trying to make money - I will most certainly have my critiques as it goes - but in terms of overall company principles, they are a massive company pushing to have more people eat better healthier food, with less industrial food production, and less capitalist contamination of the food and environmental systems.  Now obviously, in trying to make money of this there still are going to be issues.  But they're whole principle seems to be, the more people we convince to eat more organic, local, healthy foods, and the more people we get to buy in to our corporate image of 'green' and environmentally and social friendly, the more customers we'll have.

They seem to be using a growth model for their business that will mirror the growth of the health food industry in the US.  They are not trying to take customers from similar competitors, but trying to take customers from industrial chemical laden food chains, and get them eating health food.  It is tough for me to argue with that or the logic of it.  I'm sure things will play out that bother me, but on the whole, I believe in what they are trying to do - even if it is just a ploy to make money - the outcome is a better place than we started in.

I did walk through the store quick after and certainly still have some research to do; for example: while they spout on about local local local, my honey from there is from Brazil and India   They are using recyclable this and that, and biodegradable bags and such which usually are made from corn - which drives up food prices in the global south.  Obviously, there is never going to be a perfect company to work for.  It is after all a company... and this one is of course intertwined within the expropriative capitalist system, but still, it seems like a good step for me.  Income from someone that is at least trying (even though the owners politics are appalling).  And they are at least saying good things in terms of labor and how they treat their employees.  Including that there is a lot of room to move up in the company.  They will be tripling their stores over the next ten years - 340 to 1000.  Lots of opportunity there if I wanted it.  So we'll see, I feel ok with it all.  Work itself starts Wednesday.     

Beginnings and Ends

Day after day the hits keep coming...  I was still reading in bed this morning when I got an erroneous empty phone call followed by another full one from the Hiking Store I visited last night.  The woman went straight into an interview, as if I knew she was supposed to call.  Twenty minutes later I had to be in their store by 10:30 for an interview and was feeling like this woman was trying to push me in the door for labor day weekend!  So I got moving on my Chi Gung, meditated my self into an outdoor hiking spot and headed down there.  I'm a five minute bike ride away. 

The interview went well.  I mean, if there was anything my personality was made for it was retail.  Interacting face to face with people and trying to help them, too bad that little capitalism issue always gnaws at me!  lol.  But this place is a hybrid, the largest consumer cooperative in the US, and would be perfect for me.  I've actually been monitoring their website for months hoping for openings.  Plus, I've always done great in retail, so long as the emphasis is on helping people, not strictly sales numbers, and definitely not commission.  I feel that the push for "sales" takes away from the desire to help people solve the issue they came in the store looking to address.  The minute it's about money - as with anything - the best outcome for the person/customer somehow gets lost. 

I was interviewing for footwear which I've got several years of experience with in specialty shops.  I'm kind of keen on doing hiking and backpacking work, but I'll take whatever!  I always could branch out and cross-train a bit.  So, anyway, to the interview.  I thought it went really well.  The only hiccup was the what do you need to improve upon question.  I don't have my canned answer down for that on well enough yet.  I always come around to the same answer, but fumbled with it a bit.  I told them I had to find stability.  It was the first thing that came into my head and I spoke before thinking better.  It's my situation now, it's where I am.  I lack stability and its my biggest weakness right now.  The biggest issue I am fighting to address.  I played with the answer quickly, as that it has been my focus, but I don't think it was completely evident that it wasn't about innate self, but about current life situation.  I quickly transitioned to the main issue I've used before and have actually been addressing.   I tend to get into places and analyze and critique things deeply. I'm a born critical thinker, i.e. perfect as a consultant, but not always as a low man on the totem pole.  So what I have been working on is being better and more political in how I express my critiques - or if I even do at all.  I of course didn't get to that statement that quickly while there though.  But I will next time.  I've been working on it mentally all day now.  I hope it doesn't hurt me.  Everything else seemed to go really well.  We had positive interaction, smiles, affirmative nods throughout, etc.  I didn't talk much about the rest of my stuff, mostly sticking to my retail history. 

All together interviews are tricky.  I always used to nail them and get job offers on the spot, but lately since being back here in the US I haven't been getting jobs.  I mean its certainly also due to my qualifications not being quite directly on here in the US as so much of my experience is from abroad and on global issues.  But anyway, the whole job search process is tough.  It starts with your life on one or two pieces of paper based on a one or two piece of paper description of a whole nother life you want to lead and someone else is trying to convey in such a small space.  All of this in the hope of getting a half hour or so in front of a few people that will decided your fate based on every tick of your eye brow or expression on your face.  I couldn't imagine what It must be like to be someone that struggles with inter-personal stuff or pressure like that.  It's so sad too, because everyone shouldn't have to be like that.  Our variances as a species is our beauty, why should the process reward only those with certain skills? 

But anyway, this is retail, you've got to be personable.  So it's a good place for me.  So all smiles throughout, and I'm thinking they are trying to push this through. Then we come to a close with:

"We still have some other interviews to do, we'll let you know in a week or two."

Ugh.... a week or two, I'm ready now!  But I'll tell you what, if I can't get this job, I can't get one!!  A retail hiking store with conscientious principles a cooperative structure?  The job was made for me!  And yes, I do want it!!  It would start as part-time, but it would be a decent enough income, I could work up to more hours easily.  Then I'd have time to work on my other projects, and even still there would be room for advancement as well.  The one thing that does really concern me about the interview though is that I'll get pigeon-holed into running stuff or not considerd for other departments.  They have 14 spots advertised and three areas that I am very experienced at.  I just need one of them to fit. The issue though as I'm worrying about it, is that I went into that interview and was just myself.  My views, my ideals, and translated them to a retail setting - which has worked for me in the past very well.  But I'm worried, I have been having a tough run of things of lat with actually expressing my views in the real world.  I have become marginalized for my beliefs in many circles.  If I don't get this job as is, then the only avenue left for me will be to sit in those interviews and lie.  I don't think I can do that.  But anyway, I felt good abotu it all!!  And I think it will work out and I'll be working in another week or two!  :)   

Anyway, no resting on laurels as I have nothing yet.  The day goes on, more job searches, organize some UN apps, pull out the idealist.org postings from the last couple days.  But I find myself peeking more and more at the Occupy stuff.  September 17th is coming up and I've had to focus on this survival search so pointedly.  I'm feeling out of the loop and missing being involved.  But I can't focus on that, and there's other personal baggage there as well that makes it tough to be involved with right now.  So back to jobs!  I speak to the woman from the Children's agency I interviewed with a month back, she's gonna help me there as well, and now all of a sudden there's a stack of apps to get done! 

Then I get the email!!  KENYA!!!!!!  Nope, didn't get it, they wanted someone with more impact assessment experience and quantitative skills.  I figured, kinda knew it when I walked out of their office really.  And it makes it easier for me.  I don't know that I would have taken it anyway given all the other concerns about it.  But to turn down a job - no matter how rough it could be on me or my career - would have been tough to do.  Anyway, so I went for a run, sweated out all the world's chemicals, and will live to fight another day....  Oh, and I might have a place to stay next month!!  :) 

Nyanza!!

So I've been doing a fair share of research on this World Bank and Kenya situation, and things are seeming a bit ominous.  I just had two conversations with people in the industry that have both said stop, no, and don't!  That is added to the other two people in the industry that I have been speaking to that said not to as well.  This issue of "playing hardball" with the Kenyan government raises a lot of questions for me and them.  What is the issue here and why is this needed?  There are some other issues going on there within the organizations that I would be dealing with as well.  It's also coming up on an election there and will be rife with political turmoil.  This also piggy backs on violence following the last election.

This point was hammered home in a conversation tonight with an academic that works on Kenya.  She said not to go anywhere near this position, to turn and run away as fast as I can.  She questioned that if the World Bank is in the middle of turmoil there, is it something that a temporary consultant with two weeks to prepare can sort out?  Is it a position set up to fail?  When I walked out of the interview I thought to myself that this is the type of position that people with other opportunities turn down because they don't see how it is set up for them to succeed.  This was how I felt.  With the quantitative things they want of me, the support structure (not) there, and now as more information comes to light about the political and developmental situations there, it is tough to find justification for acepting such a position.

To me it really comes down to professional opportunity, and if it is the right thing for my career.  All four of my aquaintances said various mixes of why not to do it that included:

• I'd be better suited focusing on my network within international development circles here in NYC
• Would it be good for my career just because its Kenya?  I'd be doing impact evaluation and assessment, is this what I want my career to be?  Could be very easy to get pigeon-holed there.  Plus the World Bank doesn't have the best name in progressive circles.
• $40-45k for a consultancy position with little support and no in country set-up?  Nope.
• Too quick, too many problems, not enough information.... it sounds like they've gotten themselves into some trouble and are looking to throw some random consultant into the fire hoping to sort things out.  Maybe even that they can distance themselves if need be, knowing full well they're in trouble and up against a wall.
• It sounds like you're set up to fail...

I mean, it is tough for me to think through in this capacity.  My gut tells me not to do it.  My aspiration and passion says it'd be great.  My network says no, yet my mind is back and forth.  I have to admit though that since not getting the Think Tank job I have been able to just assess my life versus this job, as opposed to job versus job.  And it is tough, I so desperately need a job, but do I need to go to Kenya to get one?  And does it need to be one that I seem set up to fail in?  But hey, I haven't been offered the position yet, and given what I'm hearing, maybe its best not to be.  It would save me from having to make a really tough decision. 


 

Taking Inititative

I keep getting questions about when I haven't taken initiative from people and in interview settings.  As in, can I work for other people?  or will I?  Yes of course I will.  I never got those questions before when I was working.  But now that I'm not and I'm forced to take matters into my own hands (i.e. initiative) I seem to look like a loner. 

People don't understand that our lives are as much about reaction as action.  I went to Sierra Leone because I didn't have a job that would send me there.  Or even a job that would let me work on things that mattered there, or a job that I was even trained for.  I went to Occupy because I wasn't afforded the opportunity to live a sustainable life on my own where I was, and started my own thing at Occupy because what I saw the movement needed wasn't there.  I've volunteerd politically, I've tried starting businesses, I've officiated girls lacrosse, walked into unsavory places, done whatever, because I can't get anyone else to do it for me - give me a job, or even interviews for that matter.  These two interviews I just had are things I'm not qualified for.  I'm not an executive asistant and I don't have quantitative methods work.  I don't know how the interviews came to be, but I couldn't have gotten the positions without a miraculous and magical show at the interviews.  
Point being.  I don't want to do all these things on my own.  I don't want to ALWAYS have to take initiative.  I want a job.  I've tried to find a partner for the Sierra Leone stuff desperately but to no avail.  Since I came back to this country, I have had to take my own initiative simply to stay afloat.  It's not because I want to live that kind of life, it's because I've had to.  I do what it takes.  Sadly, that is not what people see when they read my resume, they only seem to see gaps and instability rather than thinking about it and wondering why: because all of our lives tie back into the bigger picture.  And because  in that bigger picture, our economy sucks and their are too few jobs!  So I've tried to create my own avenues, as a survivor masquerading as a unfocused slacker....

Executive Assistance

So I finally had an interview.  Three actually.  I had one with the World Bank that I will discuss in detail another time, and then a first and second round interview with a "liberal" think tank here in NYC.  No no, it wasn't to actually be think tanking, but to work as an executive assistant to three of the top people in the company.  A foot in the door and an honest day's pay.  But I didn't get the job.  Yeah, it doesn't matter that I would be great at it, or that it would be a fabulous foothold in a place that could offer both a career for me and a better understanding of how a think tank works should we desire to turn the Occupy Think Tank into a funded endeavor.  No all that matters I guess is that I didn't get it.  Why?!  I don't know, but I'm going to speculate.

I'm overqualified.  Would I stay?  Can I actually do the job being that my history doesn't show I've done it?  Those were the types of questions being asked in the second interview.  The first phone interview went well.  It was a little labored at first, but eventually hit a groove.  I liked the woman I would be working for.  I think she liked me enough as well - after all she brought me in for a second interview with the team.  But the woman at the head of operations didn't seem to feel the same.  I felt it during the interview, and completely knew it as I walked back into their office following my "test".  What can I do?  Again, it doesn't matter whether I can or want to do the job, its whether they think I can - or more importantly it seems "would". 

Hell yeah I would have!  People don't understand what life is like right now for many people.  I am applying for a job assisting positions that I have done because I WANT TO.   I want a job, I want stability, and I thought this place would be great for that.  What job I do doesn't matter as much as being able to be a part of something I believe in while getting a solid days work done, especially if there is room to eventually move there.  Frankly, I can do any of these jobs.  I'm sorry to say this, but that job was not difficult.  That may sound arrogant, but yeah, I'm a smart, educated guy.  Yes, I don't have experience working simultaneously for three different executives and juggling their needs, but I do have experience juggling a world so far more complex than three executive's and an office's needs.  And I do not mean for that to belittle this position, just to state unequivocally that I could do this work.  But I don't think that was the problem, they know I can do this work.  They think I'm overqualified because my resume has "higher" positions on it.  Or maybe its because I have more ambition than just being an executive assistant.  But who takes a job like that wanting nothing more - ever?  Not to mention that the people that have experience working as an executive assistant for three people would still be in that position if A, they were really good at it, and B they wanted to do it. 

The fact is that "qualified" is subjective.  It has nothing to do with the past, and everything to do with the present.  The current job market doesn't care what I've done in the past, it cares what positions there are right now and what jobs I can actually get.  Right now, I am an entry level to late entry level worker.  I know this.  Save a handful of jobs a year that I probably will never know exist, I am only qualified for jobs I am "overqualified" for.  Because the job advertisement's I'd BE qualified for on paper are the ones I'm under qualified for in today's job market given the other applicants being "overqualified" for those positions!  I accept that, why don't you?

These companies don't realize that they can get better employees than they once could for these positions.  That's where the labor market is right now.  It's actually the way capitalism is SUPPOSED to work.  Excess labor creates competition, which spurs training and personal inovation, lowers wages, and always leaves a group of people to replace others should they ask for wage increases or better working conditions.  We can all be let go, its why we work 80 hour weeks for one person's pay.

You can get me at a bargain, that's what the market bares.  Yet, you somehow think I won't take it or won't stay.  Yeah, if one of the job applications I put in at the UN came though I might take it.  But they are temporary positions, and I don't want to be looking for work again in 4 months.  I want to work.  I want to do something I believe.  Those are my two conditions.  This job provided both - PLUS a chance at a future!  So sad that they didn't see what I could offer, or maybe that I couldn't sell them what I would offer.  Either way though, I am now still unemployed, still searching, still wondering when people are going to figure it out...  That I have a lot more to offer than they want.   

My posts are starting to suck!

Usually I write a post at some point when an idea pops into my head, then I come back to it and edit it later.  I have been systematically going through these unpublished posts and trying to edit them and get them up dated when they were written.  What I am finding is that a lot of the ones that seem to have been written of late, as in the last couples months or so, are not very good.  I always felt for such a long time that there was a critical insight, an analysis that made sense and had a point in my writing.  Much of what I have just read though in the last couple days has been scattered and fragmented, with the point getting lost somewhere between start and end.

I used to write a great deal about the conflict within us and our society.  But that is not coming out in these posts of late.  I was out there in the world, doing, working, and critiquing.  Now I am mostly holed up in a basement trying desperately to find something to do, someplace to live.  I have to say that this is dispiriting and seems to be effecting me on a subconscious level.  It is amazing to read about the unemployed and about skills being lost, while I sit in a basement without any outlet to really use mine.  I don't think I am losing anything, in fact I feel like I am gaining perspective and a deeper understanding of struggle, nevermind desire and drive (that feels more like desperation, lol).  This additional contextual clarity will aid me some day, but still, the things I am editing right now need rewriting not editing. 

Where was I when I wrote those things?  Both literally and cognitively?  Was I out and about, writing on my phone maybe?  Or more importantly, what was my mindset?  Perhaps I am or was scattered to the point of desperation.  When you have a million things to do, you just do them.  It is the stress of all these things that makes you unable to get them done, not the tasks themselves.  When that stress takes the form of not knowing where you will live, how you will pay for food, and what the future holds, not to mention the stress of the loss of a special someone all at once, things seem easily scattered. 

Basically, I guess what I am saying is there is little coherent social critique in emotions.  My feelings of stress from a lack of employment and the subsequent prospect of homelessness are just that: raw feelings.  They are not analysis.  Granted, if I could turn those feelings into an analysis of themselves, where they come from and why, I would be looking at avenues for alleviating the issues generating that stress.  But I think it takes a clear mind to provide solid analysis, and when you are worrying about food and shelter, that clarity of mind doesn't readily exist.  You become desperate, reaching for things that you think could solve those emotions, rather than the fog that makes them worse.  You want permanence and career jobs rather than the retail or server work that can replace your short term desperation with longer term despair.  But what then when they meld together over years?  Struggle compounds.    

I am seeing this transition of self expressive capacity - the the wavering between analytical writing, and desperation and the discombobulation of a page - and can't help but wonder how we can still talk about doing away with things like school lunch programs, public housing, and other such "entitlement programs" that so directly affect children coming from disadvantaged homes.  How could they not be affected?  How could they be considered to have the same opportunities as others?  When you go home to a nice happy home with a family, food, and human security, you wake up the next morning ready to go back to school - homework done, familially supported, relaxation time had.  But what about those without that?  I can physically see the toll its taken on me - and I'm an adult!  Imagine a 7 or 8 year old kid without food or stability?  Of course it is going to affect their outputs.

Anyway, again, I'm all over the place.  There is a lot of stress on me, as there is on the millions of un/under employed and poor in this country and world.  Those of you with jobs and wealth don't see it, you don't see the struggle, the pain.  You don't see the strength it takes every day.  You just want to tell us how easy it is and what to do to make it all work.  As if I had complete and total control over someone else giving me a job.  Bottom line is, there just aren't enough jobs out there for everyone, many of those that are don't pay living wages or offer career value, and there isn't enough money to get funding to start your own.  Whether I can do the work or not doesn't matter.  My biggest task has become dealing with the pain and stress of not knowing what's going to happen next...

Sympathy accepted, job interviews rewarded!!   



 

The World Bank

So I had the interview with the World Bank today. Took the bus down to DC from NYC in the morning, met an old friend for lunch and then hit the interview.  Headed back now on the bus.  Bottom line is that I don't know that I could pass up this opportunity, but that I don't really want to go, nor do I know that I am actually the right person for this job.  But I suppose I should start at the beginning of the interview. 

It was myself and two other guys. We hit it off right off the bat. Immediately developing a report. It turns out that I was pretty much hand picked out of the stack of resumes. This project in Kenya has apparently been having a problem in relation to the government. Apparently they usually take people for these positions that are phd students in economics that can just come in and do the research. This position in Kenya is apparently different though, and they want someone a little older with management experience and the capacity to either demand or garner respect more readily both through demeanor and experience. They seemed to think I was an ideal fit for this on paper, and expressed mid-way through the interview that I seemed just right for it.... then... they started asking the technical research based quantitative questions.

Basically, the job itself would be to oversee a huge operation. I would be overseeing the entire field assessment project for to educational programs in this region of Kenya and all of the data collection. Over 50 schools for just one of the two programs and a research company with a team of some 50 plus people, and several local personnel directly working with me on the local environment and cultural aspects of the study. Then additional, I would be working directly with the Kenyan government, the World Bank, their implementation team, local universities, researchers in the US, and who knows whatever else.

This project has also been going on for 4 years and has yet to have an impact assessment due to these issues they seem to be facing with the Kenyan Government. My roll would be to be able to come in and "play hardball” and get this thing done.  I actually kind of think this may be a great thing for me managerially and in terms of my interpersonal skills and ability to softly be assertive, but it also begs the question "why?"  Why do you need to play hardball with the Kenyan government?  This needs a lot more research and assessment.  Also, while I am managing all of these people, I would still have to be setting up and running a data collection operation using quantitative skills that I have not used in a number of years. I have spent most of my time working with qualitative methods and more culturally sensitive approaches. Listening to people rather than giving them questionnaires and codes. My job here would be to set up the questionnaires and finalize them. I would have local assets to help bring cultural relevance to the project. Most importantly though, I will be working on generating the sample sizes and and orchestrating their adherence, helping implement and design the entire research project. This is something that I have not done on this type of level.

I suppose I need more information as to what type of support structure I would have there to get this done before I could say that I felt comfortable that I could definitely succeed in this job. I of course believe that I can do anything. I can learn/refresh these research skills quickly and easily. I also think that they would be tremendously benefited by the other skills that I bring in research terms and my ability to think against the grain and outside the box. But ultimately, they need the data sets to be flawless. Can I guarantee this will happen? Can they be certain of this? This is the crux of it all and I'm not sure what they will think. But if they chose me, it is because they think that I am the best person for the job. I would have to take that as confidence in my capacity to make this research project happen. I know I could manage it. And I know I could be a part of designing and implementing the research design. However, if I am responsible for doing this on my own, then I would have to think about whether its the best thing for me.

There is of course another factor with this: the compensation. I was thinking that the World Bank would send you abroad with a solid support structure behind you. An expat type structure with housing, stipend, etc. Nope. They fly you there and put you in a hotel for a week or two while you find your own accommodation and get things set up there by yourself. Really? The World Bank?!?! And then they pay exactly the same as the admin assistant job I just interviewed for in NYC? $40-45?!!? Really?!? That project described above and the same pay to shuffle documents and flight itineraries for three executives? Yeah the cost of living is obviously different, but still, it's a temporary position that I don't even think now comes with benefits, insurance, a computer, whatever. I have a lot more questions about this. Is there an office? How do I set up a life, internet, communications, etc. You just want me to be able to drop myself down in Kenya and make shit happen at the high level that the World Bank requires? This can't be right. Any company I've ever known of any salt helps you get set up, or at least outsources it for you. Some assistance.  If is that's ll you get though, it truly must take one hell of a special breed of person to be able to do this in random and different countries in the world. I just don't think it can be right and goes against what I've heard about them in the industry.   There must at lest be someone there to help.

But that is to be seen I guess. When I am offered a job, I can start discussing that. But it is a discussion I will definitely be having if offered. Because if I have to set up my whole life there on my own from day one, jet lagged, unfamiliar, and with no support, their project is going to suffer. It is one thing to show up in Prague and figure it out, China, Sierra Leone, etc, when you don't have anything you have to get done that day. But there..... I step off the plane and its go time. Get the project up and running, while you look for a place to live and a life all with no help. Would be amazing. If I could do that, I could do anything.

For the Love of Unemployment!!

At the depths of my soul there is this warm and tender place where I really just wants to be loved and to love every single last person that I come across.  This is a difficult thing to bare.  There are lots of people out there and they all have their flaws and their amazing things that make them burst out of crowds.  We all have these things, we all are wonderful.  And I guess it is how we handle the fluctuations within ourselves and thus who we end up presenting to the world that makes us stand out to more people than not.  I must say that what the last couple years have done to me is to threaten some of what I bring to the table in terms of all things amazing. 

I am needier than I once was, and I think it hurts me daily.  But I don't think it is that I as a person have become more needy, just that my situation has created more of a need within me right now.  There aren't as many avenues today to feel love as there once was.  A wonderful person said to me the other night that me and my situation take up most all of the space in our conversations.  I didn't really know how to react.  I know this I suppose, and I know that I am spending so much time right now leaning on other people for support.  I need to talk, I need to stay positive, to have fun with others, even you could say to be distracted by the wonderfulness of people and their humanity.  And I don't mean that to belittle anyone as simply a distraction, but the point is that we all have things in our lives that provide us with supportive emotions, positive feelings and negative ones.  Finding a balance that allows us to function on a level of happiness that makes it worth soldering on with a smile is important.  I have had to rely on others too much for that, for too long of a time now. 

You know, when you're job is going well, you can manage personal strife.  When you're happy with your personal situation and take pleasure from it, a shitty job somehow seems half as bad.  Someone to go home to, friends to hang out with, things to do, whatever.  But when these other things are all sporadic elements of daily ups and down and don't provide much support, work seems worse, interesting things seem less interesting, and you start reaching out for more space.  Encroaching upon the world. 

I think this is where I am right now.  I have no job, I have a tenuous housing situation, and a good deal of personal turbulence.  It all forces me to lean on other people for emotional support. And people are something that the unemployed are not generally surrounded by all day.  For example: today was an absolute emotional roller coaster for no reason at all.  I woke up just fine, good thoughts for a positive day.  But then I went  to check on an application I submitted a while back for a position that I really liked: assistant to the democracy program at a research, legal, think tanky thing.  I was of course resoundingly shunned at the door.  They don't have time for that kind of in-person stuff, I'm only worth what I can put on a piece of paper after all.  Yeah, I could have bullshitted my way past the gatekeeper, faking knowledge of something or an appointment, but I'd like to think that my integrity won't give way to my desperation.  So I left not thinking much of it until I got on my bike and started feeling this physical reaction.  Was it anxiety, stress, despair, desperation?  Something surrounding all that most likely.  My throat was tensing up, my breath became a bit askew.  Why?  Why would some simple guy not alowing me the time of day mean so much?  Why would I react like that?  I called my mom, texted a friend. 

Then I pounded away on an application for another hiking store job.  This time a big chain that would probably pay me this time.  lol.  I've been waiting for openings there for months and finally.... there are 14!!  Yes, fourteen openings for sales floor people.  I'm golden I'm thinking!!  I get the application in and ride my not so shiny Schwinn right the hell down there and walk in the door to tell them exctly what I'm there to do. 

"I just applied 15 minutes ago, and I want to speak to a manager about it."  

I get sent downstairs to the next level of interrogation.

"I know they don't usually see people, but I've got experience!" I pronounce in a subtly magnanimous tone. 

Person to person, I slowly get closer until after a decent wait, wala!!  I get one minute with the hiring manager and the assistant manager of the store as they walk past me on the way to something usually more important than unemployed stalkers.  And it works, my 30 second elevator view into "timistan" that I punctuated with a lots of eye contact, overt magnanimity, and a smile that seemed to have won them both over. 

"What's your name", the manager said as he pulled out a pen and wrote it down, the hiring manager then said "you'll be hearing from us soon".  

I of course cap it off with a

"Hey, I'm ready now, I can start tomorrow and be on the floor for labor day!"  

I'm smiling as I head for the door.  Maybe it just might have worked! 

Also, just before I left to go there, I got an email back from a woman I interviewed with a month ago with a Children's organization.  She said I hadn't gotten the job because other candidates had food justice expertise she couldn't ignore, but said that she really enjoyed our interview and my perspective on justice, youth, and life, and that I would be great in a classroom with kids.  She wants me to apply for the other jobs I'd seen just recently (yes, she was following up from my pestering her) and that she'd stump for me in their office.  This is great!  Especially on top of the hiking store...  I come back and get started.  Ugh... now I've got so many applications to do, but when?  I get another application in that a friend sent me for a temp agency working with non-profits.  I send out an email that may some day lead to my current dream position.  I'm feeling good. 

But then I start yearning for someone to talk to and I start wondering why I haven't heard from such and such.  As if people don't have things to do.  It starts getting deeper and deeper within me.  Why does this get so internalized?  I mean who cares?  It's a text message, a simple communique that means so little in the larger scheme of things.  So why am I so emotionally week right now?  Why do I want or need so desperately to be loved right now?  Is it because my every day is spent getting rejected?  Cover letter after cover letter, no response.  And I looked at the position for the legal think tanky democracy position I stoped by at and the person in that spot now; shit, yeah I'm not going to get it.  I've got plenty of democratization experience, researching, writing, whatever, but its all on international issues.  Sure I'll get work in Kenya, or Moldova, or the Mars.  But no work in the US.  All my experiece is abroad, and on issues abroad, how does that translate here?  I know the world, but how many people here care about the world?  We have a lot of our own problems.

So anyway, back to the narrative.... I decide to head to a movie, 8:30 at Union sq, that Borne movie.  So I get there and its not there.  I try the other Union Square theater, nope not at 8:30, only at 10.  So I missed it all and go home annoyed at my computer, slowly emotionally digressing.  It's a freaking movie?!?!  Turns out Google somehow thinks that the Union Square in NYC movie link is best suited to send you Union Square in San Franscisco's cinema page... who knew!?  But hey, their three hours behind maybe I can still make that one!?  Need to get that teleporter of mine fixed anyway... ;)  But yeah, my point is that this stuff doesn't matter, yet it so tremendously affects me right now.  Little things that are now a struggle that never were.  But most importantly, what I am trying to say, is that its about the space I am taking in other people's lives. 

I sit around wanting to hear from them, needing to almost.  And in my head I worry and wonder like I never used to.  Like the bonds are somehow closer now.  Like I somehow need them more now than I once did.  I never used to need people.  I simply wanted them.  But now it feels more like a need.  Like I have such an uphill battle everyday just to stay upright that it helps to have someone to hold on to.  I miss Occupy, I miss my Africa work, but most of all I miss being strong enough to work on them.  It is sad. 


I know that I am hurting myself in my personal relationships right now.  I dive in, give myself to every person I meet.  But they don't do the same.  They don't need to, shouldn't even.  They have jobs, and lives, and friends, and whatever else content stable people have.  I have none of that.  I have dreams and desires, and lots of potential energy, but little of the kinetic stuff.  This is a long way away from the me that I've always known.  Yes, I've been through spells when I haven't had work or didn't win the big game or whatever and I reach out more, as we all do.  But when things are going well you don't need other people to help things go well.  I don't know how I'd manage if I didn't have so much self-confidence.  Even as I write this in fleeting despair, I feel that success will come, that some day I will say I told you so!  If I didn't believe in myself and my abilities I'd be a mess laying in an alley way somewhere. 

I guess in all of this the only thing I can ask is that people try to understand where I am.  I reach out because I need something to hold on to.  I take up this space because I'm struggling.  And it pains me to know it hurts you all, all I want to do is know more about you, about your life, but all I'm capable of right now it seems is trying to hold mine together.  So I talk and talk about my dreams, desires, and potential rather than listening to stories about your jobs, and lives, and friends - because that's what I want - and what I want for you, and what I want for everyone and their relationships, but feel I can't do.  To be able to revel together in ourselves as strong separate wholes.  Unfortunately for my part in that bargain right now I am a volatile needy half.  I promise it is not the life I've had and want, but it is the one I'm in right now, yes in the plight that I'm in Sam, Sam I am.  So please world, bare with me.  I will return both here and there, as a mouse, and in a house... we all will.... 

Farming for More Markets

So I started a new job yesterday... Yes another one.  Another look into another part of the world that lives around us.  This time I am working at a farmers market.  Not a typical one, but one that more or less acts as a Sunday organic market.  It has a pretty unsound business model, but the absolute best of intentions.  It is part of a workers cooperative, or at least will be some day.  The building is designed as such for the long term, but not wholly there yet.  Anyway, it is very interesting to see the world that exists there.

The business itself is a bit of a mess.  It is retail sales of a mostly perishable food supply, that only opens once a week, thus making the p in perishable capital.  They are losing money hand over foot in an endeavor designed to make money for the workers co-op. They are working on tweaking it into a collective kitchen project. There are some remnants of occupy style endeavors. People with the warmest of hearts and best of intentions, trying to do something that they only partially know how to.  Like occupiers trying to organize people or labor without talking to labor organizers or having experience at it, trying to run a retail produce business with knowledge of produce but no experience with retail business is tough, ambitious, comendable... but lacking in efficiency and know how.

All the same I think they are evolving and working to really do good things. The co-op set up is great, and if they add a kitchen that serves food daily they could end up with an outlet for food bought for a Sunday that won't last till the next one.  There also is a very strong personality coming with it that on first glimpse seems to be maybe too strong and independent. Not that there is not tremendous need to respect both this person and the project as they are doing it.  They've done good things, but there is always more to it all than that. We shall see, but another job, another day, another way.  Cooperative worker owned structures are great, I am excited to be a part of the beginning stages of something like this, and to have more work...

Manny!!

So I've got a job!  Yes, I am going to be molding youth!  I met Saturday evening with a mother and daughter and will be working starting next Monday as a Nanny (now pushed up to tomorrow!).  It is a short term gig, 6 weeks total, but full time and for good pay.  It will really be a great way to get myself back on my feet and buy some time while I work to see what else can pan out.

It is funny too with everything.  It all comes crashing in together.  I was waiting on the Nanny idea before I got too far into the other stuff, but when I didn't hear back right away I had to make an "all eggs in one basket call" and apply for the painting position.  Wouldn't you know that I got offered the Nanny job and then within two days I got a call back from the painting company for an interview not but a few minutes after I got a call from an Occupy friend about some possible work doing organizing and/or historical research involving unions.  It comes in waterfalls!!  This last one is obviously really exciting at first glimpse, but I'll find out more on Thursday.

As for the painting, the interview ended up being canceled due to some kind of an "emergency".  But they said they'd get back in touch with me.  Maybe they googled me and found out I was a dirty hippie that lives in parks!!  Haha!!  I haven't heard back for two days now...  As it is though, they want me to be using my car (which I'm about to go under on), while not paying me nearly enough to live on (nevermind pay for gas and get the car fixed up for regularly use).  But this job - like most - just doesn't pay enough to sustain life.  Yes, they talked to me about advancement there and such, but we all know that painting isn't really going to be the thing that I get excited about for the future.  Full time painting houses for 10 or 12 bucks and hour?!  To live in NYC and have a car to head upstate in emergencies?  Huh!?

I think we all face this issue at times.  You have to have a job to eat, to live.  But then what?  What if the job itself isn't enough to live and eat?  If I need a car to do the job, but I need a better salary to keep the car to keep the job, what do I do?  Live out of the car?  Yeah, I've done that, it's not sustainable.  And while many people may think that you do what you have to do to move forward in life.  At what point does a society step back and look at itself and say, hey, we've got way too many people living in cars!  When there are so many jobs that do no pay living wages it is time to reassess things.  That is of course where I think we are of course, but just that we haven't realized on such a large scale that our lives are simply not sustainable.

So that is why I Occupy.  I hope that we can change that living situation for so many people.  That is also why I will become a nanny.  It pays well, will be enjoyable, and in this case is short term which will allow me to keep moving forward looking for other career work (and keep occupying).  I will only have till September to stay where I am.  So I have to put the pressure on here.  It would be great if the labor research opportunity would come through as something real and sustainable.  But as with all of these things, there will always be some conflict, some compromise that I will have to make to move forward.  Will it be the subject matter?  The pay?  The type of convictions within the organizations?  Who knows... but it will be interesting all the same!!  Forward we must.      

hiking (for a nominal advance on wages already earned...)

So I ended up finally getting an email out to my boss at the hiking store.  I tried to delicately explain my stance and why I should be paid.  His response was, frankly, appalling and literally sent me calling the national lawyers guild.  He didn't seem to see anything wrong with not paying me.  He had told me that I couldn't count on this job to be my main source of income, thus felt like he was covered and fine in not paying me on time.  He also questioned how he could possible pay me ahead of people that had been with him longer, and been waiting to get paid longer.  Yes, fair enough... they deserve to be paid as well!!  But what arrangement you've made with your other employees is between you and them and none of my business!  If you want to come ask me if I will do the same, fine, lets have that conversation.  The fact is though, that when you said that work would be sporadic at the store and I shouldn't count on it as my main source of income, you said I wouldn't be getting steady HOURS!!  You didn't say that when I did get hours I wouldn't be getting paid for them!  I mean, the audacity to even think, nevermind assume, that your workers would just be fine with working and not getting paid.

I waited till the next day to address it in person.  It was a struggle right from when I walked in the door though.  I saw my other coworker and the boss together.  The cold shoulder was evident from both of them.  The kind of fake smile and handshake where you are really thinking under your breath: "I hate you, you dirty bastard".  It seemed to me that my boss had obviously spoken to my colleague, sullying my name there for simply demanding to be paid for time I'd worked.  I can only picture how that story went: "tim is demanding to be paid before you!" "You've been here a year!" "The audacity!"

This is the way ownership gets us.  A political game that turns us against each other.  We are not supposed to talk about things like this, salaries, conditions, etc.  You know how this works.  We're NEVER supposed to ask other people what they make.  But why not?  Because we might all realize we are getting treated very differently?  Screwed even?  This is the heart of the idea behind collective bargaining and unionizing.  It is not so we can get extra days off a year and retire at 40.  It is so that there is communication amongst workers.  So that we will know if we are all being treated fairly.  As individuals we can be hired, fired, and taken advantage of, but as a collective group we can ask to actually get our pay, we can ask for humane working conditions, for dignity and respect in our daily tasks, and maybe even  a wage we can live on.

Yeah, frankly I don't trust this guy anymore.  I mean, I like him personally I guess.  But it is what we do that defines us, our actions, words, and how we treat people.  When I spoke to him, it was just as if he was trying to find a way to keep me on for the least outlay, with the least amount of integrity.  He agreed entirely to what I was saying bout it all, probably thinking: "yes! he's not actually going to ask for his full salary!"  I mean, he basically negotiated me out of demanding full pay for work done.  In this whole process he gets to pay me late.  Yet somehow I've accepted this.  Implicitly or not, I have agreed to getting shafted.  He also slipped in there at one point that this week he'd be paying February's wages.  This is of course what he said to me about last week as well.  But it still hasn't gone out.  But the worst thing about it all is that he doesn't realize that this is what he teaches us to say to customers about out of stock supplies and bills.  Like we don't recognize ourselves in these narratives.  Then, after all this, he then has the audacity to send an email out about a mandatory training a couple Monday's from now (yeah it'll be "paid").  Sorry bro, I'm nannying that day.  Working somewhere where I will get paid.  Your store is now at the bottom of the totem pole.  I will work for you when I can.      

There is one other thing that I want to bring up regarding this, which is pure speculation and may be completely colored by a singular and horrible experience in my past.  I mentioned that not getting paid like this happened to me once before.  That incidence was much worse.  The company owed my $29,000 in back pay, was stalling my work visa for that country, and was giving me just enough cash keep above water, but not enough to leave the country.  I was trapped and in a situation that was malicious in so many ways.  I was promised bonuses and a percentage to offset the situation, yet nothing was materializing while the owner lived it up, stealing money from the company.  I eventually got my pay back, but that's a looong story for a book!  No matter though, here I am again, with this hiking company getting screwed.

There is one thing that the two men that owned these outfits had in common: they were both long term military men (one British, one America).  The way they spoke, the calculations they seemed to take, the rationale they ultimately used, it was all so incredibly similar.  It's as if loyalty is a one way street that goes straight down the chain of command.  General to private, owner to worker.  As if hierarchy knows no bounds; resting upon its highest of peeks maintaining no moral ground from which to look down upon us from.  Neither of them seemed to stop paying their rents, their salaries, and their bills. 

But anyway, who knows if that is the case here.  All I know is that I don't have enough cash to pay a bill that's due this week and be able to eat over the next two weeks.  Yeah, I'll get some cash, but I won't get what I'm supposed to, thus my budgeting matters not.  But, I've learned something.  I've learned not to trust ownership (again) and I've learned to be wary of military ownership, especially those falling on hard times.  It also should go without saying that I've also gotten my daily fix of reiteration that our system is fundamentally flawed.  But let's just keep moving forward with that one.  One step... 

Moving Forward(ish)

So this week has seen a lot of different things come and go.  I have spent a lot of time looking for work for now, but also working on finding a way forward for the longer term.  Of late though, it's mostly been about conflict.  no matter what it is that we do in life it conflicts with something that we either believe in or should/must do.  I've been getting a lot of advice of late an it all seems pretty much unmanageable.  No matter what I do, whether it's in life or specific situations, there is no victory.  If I get a job in international development like my experience and degrees point to, in some people's eyes I run the risk of becoming a colonialist, imperialist, or even a missionary.  I can of course stay working where I am and just not get paid for the too few hours that I'm working.  But even then, the job is really just another capitalist wage-labor position bowing down to the man (not paying me).  I've applied to do commercial interior painting, I followed up on a nannying lead for a toddler.  Applied to more retail, and got a networked in an application for post-conflict reconstruction work.  Who knows what if anything will bare fruit.  Yapo has also come back with some work he needs done on a prospective funding line from England.  I am not sure it is feasible though at first glimpse.  But will get further in as I can.


The heart and soul of my time has been of course on Occupy stuff though.  I am really getting further into this sustainability issue.  We have to find a way to sustain the movement's individuals in a way that leaves them empowered and energized to progress the movement.  We also need to try to find a prefigurative way to illuminate the inequities of the current system by showing that another way is possible - and functional - under current auspices.

I've had some really good conversations with a number of people about it and am starting to see a solid research project, and maybe even a group for moving forward.  It would certainly be a long slow project, but ten years from now the movement will be judged on what it achieved, not how long it took to map out a structure for success.

So there we are: I am trying to juggle life, work, occupy, and social relationships and whatever else gets thrown in there that day.  I know as per societies wishes I should just be settling in and working away.  But that is just what keeps the cycle going.  If I stay both dumbed and numbed down the status quo will maintain and most of our lives will just continue to lag behind just a few.  But I can't and won't allow it.  We will all find a way forward personally and professionally, so that we can keep working on finding a way forward for the movement and in turn a more economic and socially just society.  The journey of 10,000 feet starts with a single step....

What's next??

So as you will see in the previous post (schools), I have no immediate plans for the future.  A dream of mine may finally need to come to a close... meaning it's probably time to reassess life, put all options back on the table.  I can only imagine how many people are doing this this time of year.  Students for sure, but probably countless others in general.  The weather is starting to turn nice, people want to get out and do things, be with people they enjoy.  Instead, a lot of us our sitting around wondering what our lives are about and how to afford to leave the house - if we have one.  Unemployment is still drastically high, wages still drastically low, health care, housing, whatever.  This is a time when many people are reassessing life, and wishing they had more options.

So for me, what this means is that for years I have been working towards an academic styled career with lots to show for it but little pragmatic return.  It's been said to me about this round of applications that if I didn't get in to schools that maybe it was time to recognize that while I could keep doing things in the present to better my applications that my past couldn't change.  I will always by the dyslexic guy that went to college to play football, and ran across some interesting academic stuff along the way.  Maybe it is that part that will just never get me far in academia.  What choice do I have?

So as it is, what do I do from here?  I was let go from my political job because I was not a good cold calling fundraiser.  I have picked up work in a hiking store doing retail sales and as a guide since, but this is supplemental income at best.  Therefore, I am back to the same old dilemmas.  I have Occupy, it's in my core, and there are a lot of things I'd like to do within it - countless really.  But Occupy doesn't provide an income.  And as we all know, the world we live in requires an income.  The trick for me has always been about how to find a way to express my passions and principles through work.

Right now a quick list of possibilities includes (in no specific order):

• Working on a sustainability project for Occupy that would involve revenue generation through cooperative guild-like structures to accommodate housing, intellectual, and production needs for the movement.  This is much more complex and should be elaborated elsewhere.  Pluses: Occupy for the future! Minuses: no money
• Occupying universities: A plan was floated to me well before I was rejected from schools that, whether I get in or not, we should organize a protest group to go to school anyway.  Bring together people at every level that can't afford school or can't get access to school and go anyway.  for me this would mean starting a PhD program without admission or consent.  I will go to a meeting tonight for the Occupy friendly Free University.  Also worth looking at this school set up in the UK.  Pluses: Occupy and education.  Minuses: no money.
• Other Occupy projects:
• 99 Pickets - help coordinate labor issue pickets and solidarity.
• Police pickets - include Occupy somehow in the Police union's contract negotiations.  "While we don't support that you beat and repress us, we do support you as exploited workers."
• Think Tank
• Outreach and door to door and flyering work.
• Occupy documentary/research trip: I was approached a few weeks ago by a documentary film maker with Occupy to take a few months to travel around the country and go to any number of Occupies to spread the think tank and help him with the documentary.  This opens doors in a lot of directions.  I would structure it as a research study and could even work with professors on the study.  I would be learning and connecting with Occupy on a much broader level and the research would have specific Occupy goals including bringing more ideas through the think tank and its web page.  Blogging and writing the whole way.  Pluses: Occupy, research, writing.  Minuses: Money, would be really tough to fundraise.
• I can continue working on my writing, try to publish things and even work on finishing one of my book projects.  Pluses: writing.  Minuses: low probability of or no money
• There is of course random work out there as well.  Retail work, athletic stores, service industry, etc.  (I haven't been able to do lacrosse officiating because of some vague issue with my fingerprint process, hmmm...).  Pluses: Money. Minuses: time lost in unproductive work.
• I could finish my application for the Open Society Institute for a large funding stream for a year.  Pluses: lots of money, my research and writing.  Minuses: highly competitive (unlikely to get), takes months to hear back.
• Think Tank funding:  I could look into ways to find funding sources and/or grants for the think tank.  Pluses: Occupy, research.  Minuses: unlikely
• Could actually work in conjunction with documentary trip.
• I can push wholeheartedly back into the development industry.  New York City is a great place to be for organizations and companies working on development issues.  Pluses: Money, working on issues I believe in and am experienced in. Minuses: me and everyone else... really tough to get this type of job.
• Non-profit work.  Race relations, economic and social justice, democracy, individuals, society, etc.  I would love to get into domestic work along the lines of Occupy related issues, but I have little of the "concrete" experience employers seem to want.  Pluses: issues and Occupy.  Minuses: tough to get. 
• Africa Project: I will be giving an update on this work asap, but the work I did in Africa is starting to bear fruit.  I could push further into this.  Pluses: heart, previous effort, finishing it, helping people, gaining experience.  Minuses: Money, really tough to coordinate all logistically and do other things.   
• Work towards schools again:  I could continue to look at schools or work towards it.  I don't think I would spend much time looking in US though.  I know I'd want to go to Rutgers if here, and if elsewhere probably just go abroad so I was done in 3-4 years.  Pluses: see schools post.  Minuses: see schools post, lol.  But realistically... what is it they say about insanity?  Doing the same thing an expecting different results?

So that is probably not an exhaustive list as there is always running off to China and joining a Daoist monastery or marketing toothpaste in Eastern Europe.  lol.  No matter what though, I will be involved with Occupy and think that I need to be based out of NY for that.  Again though, the key is that I have to live.  All the Occupy related stuff requires longer periods of struggle and huge uncertainties with money.  All of which I am not against, but I know these options will be very tough and cause ancillary issues in my life.

The key to it all is that things need to be broken down into long and short term issues, and then I need to work meticulously towards the things I may want to attain.  Starting down as many pathways as I can until certain one's become more clear.  Short term I have to make some money.  I have the hiking store, but it is not enough to live on.  So I will have to find something else quickly.  That kind of goes without choice - random work!  Yes, it would be great if that random work was something I loved doing like researching and/or writing just to make a couple hundred dollars hear or there, but most likely it will be retail.

From there it is about the future...  What do I want to be down the road?  Do I want to go back into development work?  Non-profit?  What about trying to open doors with the Occumentary?  Basically, if there is one thing that the world has shown right now, is that good opportunities are tough to come by for anyone.  I spent years looking for work in my field, hundreds of applications.  What is to say today will not be the same as yesterday?  Frankly, there just aren't a lot of jobs out there that will allow me to pay student loans, housing, food, life, etc, no matter what my ideals are.  This is our world, and I am caught up in it completely.  Questioning it all, wondering how I got here, even while knowing full well that the past doesn't matter at all right now only how the hell the future is going to pan out, and/or if I have any control over it what-so-ever.  Kind of depressing actually.  Takes me back to a time and some writing I did a while back.  To have worked this hard in life to try to understand things, to try to gain experience, to try to stand up for people and good things, yet still to be faced with nothing but a dark void in front of you.  Tough.  



  

No politics!!

So a guy came in to the hiking store today, apparently he's a regular, and he started talking about Chicago and the NATO/G8 events there towards the middle of May.  He was talking about the whole city being evacuated, actually claiming all of Illinois was being evacuated and was off on some details.  Obviously given my position within Occupy circles I had some things to had.  So I stuck in a few general facts about Obama moving the G8 to Camp David and some facts and figures on the police ramp up and supposed tactics being discussed by them.  Nothing too profound, just some point of information type stuff.  The conversation went on and I was pretty neutral and subdued, GMO's came up, occupy, etc.  The other guy working in the store was staying out of it.  He left to get something to eat and I got a bit further into things.  When he came back we were fully into GMO's.  I should also say, the guy was full on conspiracy theorist, so if anything, I was tampering his fervor.  But anyway, we finally get to a closing point and he says "ok, one last question..." which I probably could have guessed.  "9/11, inside job?"  lol.  My colleague was back and declined to answer, I give a politically correct no and brief explanation which the colleague added to.

Once the guy leaves, pleading the whole way that it was an inside job, my colleague tells me nope, natta, we can't engage in politics.  He states that the owner will of course at times (especially amongst ourselves) and sometimes you have to, but that the store can't be seen as taking a political stance.  From a business perspective I see his point wholly and respect it, sounds rational and prudent for business.... but not for life.  I mean think about the world we live in.  We have this unwritten rule in America that in "polite company" we don't talk about politics and religion; two things probably most often gone to war over in human history.  Yeah and maybe on the surface that's a good reason to stay out of it, but come on, what is politics if not your daily life?!  We make choices all the time, choices that are political and can be even more political.  To not engage in dialog about the most contentious aspects of our social existence is to ignore them.  To ignore the most important parts of our lives. 

This to me seems to be just more of the same old dumbing down of America and its politics.  I remember on numerous occasions while in Europe sitting places and speaking to both friends and strangers about politics and religion, and having them express how odd they thought it was that in America they were taboo topics that people didn't want to talk about.  It has become such a part of life here in the US to not express your political and spiritual beliefs - in the land of the free!!  Somehow we don't feel comfortable engaging in this type of dialog, nevermind seeing people protest about it.

My personal opinion is that it is not about the subject matter, but about our manner of discussion.  The way we talk to each other and the respect that we have for other people.  Our political system has become so polarized, and so entrenched with its poles, that these discussions to easily lead to black and white stances with little room for common ground and grey areas to agree upon.  But more importantly, I think these arguments so easily come about because of how we've become as people.  I don't see a mass populace will to listen or taught to be open to new or different people and ideas.  We are brought up to believe in our beliefs as we come to learn them at all costs and not to waver.  Pride and arrogance - and ugly combination.  An open mind it seems is a terrifying thing to possess in America.

Yes, I am generalizing and perhaps detrimentally so.  But I believe on the whole, we have created a country that is unwilling and incapable of simple person to person political dialog in both our friendly and professional circles.  What does this do but simply make us less capable of discussion over time and also less informed.  Person to person dialog is invaluable.  It is the only way to truly understand the lives and politics of other people.  The only politics most people end up getting in their lives is the politics of hand picked - and in many cases agenda driven - sound bites and/or the repetitive voices of well funded political pundits.  That is not politics.  That is large scale social engineering.  I won't get into the American media and the disaster that it is in this post, but its pretty simple, if you really want to learn about people, ask them.  If you really want to understand politics, ask people.  And not just people like you, but ask people you don't know and don't identity with what they think about things.  Random people on the subway, at the mall, the supermarket, wherever: Occupy, Obama, stop and frisk, Romney, banking, Iran, whatever.  As a society we will never learn anything if we can't engage in honest open - nonrepehensible - dialog about our lives, our neighborhoods, our stores, our countries, our world, whatever.  Politics should NEVER be off limits.  Just like stifling protest should never happen.  But I suppose it would be best if first we actually made it acceptable to both have different beliefs, and to accept others with different beliefs.  Talk freely amongst yourselves!!