Bernardo

As you know, I teach ESL, at least for now. The classes are mostly one-on-one, in the students' homes, and the two-hour lessons usually occur once or twice a week. It's an intimate thing: faces about a foot apart, working together to discover something, trying to unlock a mystery and gain understanding.

On Monday evenings I have a class with Bernardo, a very sweet young guy from Costa Rica. We've been meeting for more than four months. He and his wife Cynthia have been here since last winter, working on a big project for a huge computer chip manufacturer. Since our classes emphasize conversational skills, I've asked him lots of questions and heard all about his family, his job, his favorite foods, his ideas about complicated modifications he wants to make to his bike, his dreams about running a big beach resort in Guanacaste, and plans for road trips to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and Disneyland (the three top destinations on most of my students' wish lists).

He is more than my student - he is my friend. To the extent that two people who don't have a common language can learn to like each other while discussing hypothetical travel plans and kitchen utensils, we have done so.

Last night, when Bernardo answered the door, he didn't give me his usual big grin and firm handshake, his usual, "Hallo, Mister Steve!" Instead he was completely silent and looked at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen.

"Bernardo - what's wrong?"
"My wife . . . my wife . . . she die on Saturday."

Cynthia was 23.

Everything was fine Saturday morning. Bernardo went to work for a few hours. When he returned, Cynthia was asleep on the living room sofa. Bernardo gently called to her, "wake up," but she didn't move. He went over to shake her a little, and touched her face, and it was cold. She had lain down for a nap.

When the police responded to his 911 call, he was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters for questioning. The apartment was marked off like a crime scene.

By the time Bernardo was released and returned home, his wife's body had been removed and the apartment swept for evidence. In a daze, he called Cynthia's mother in Costa Rica to tell her what happened.

The coroner has ruled out heart or lung problems, and suspects a brain embolism. When the body is released, which may take weeks, Bernardo will accompany it back to Costa Rica for the funeral and burial.

How do you comfort a guy whose culture frowns on hugs and tears between men, unless it's related to a soccer match? Bernardo stood there in his living room with the Southwest-style rental furniture all around him, and demonstrated for me how he gently shook her pillow to wake her before he touched her face. I stared at the sofa. I stared at the immaculate apartment, as stripped of personal objects as a furniture showroom.

I stared at the pile of English language materials that once promised a new and wonderful life in a foreign country for an ambitious and light-hearted couple in love.

But mostly I stared into those sad, sad eyes.

I feel like a pot of day-old oatmeal

Waiting to hear on jobs . . . . . . I'm starting to crust up around the edges and form a slight puddle, like leftover oatmeal in a pan left by mistake overnight on the top of the stove. Maybe if I were reheated and stirred vigorously, I could be delicious again (with lots of sugar, milk, raisins and a pat of butter) but if left to sit like this much longer I'll start growing into some experimental chemical warfare. I can feel the mold trying to form internally, like the gentle tickle of an incipient herpes ready to burst forth in interview-killing magnificence.

Song cue: Oliver!

Who will buy this crappy old fart face?
Such a guy you never did see!
Who will tie him up with some red tape
And put him at an old PC?

Who will buy a chubby with herpes?
He can type and make copies, too
Me oh my, he'll even do filing
And maybe kiss an ass or two

He used to work for Uncle Sam once
Now he's a piece of used TP
If ever you would hire this man once
He'd spend his mornings on his knees

Who will buy a dandy old dandy?
Take what's left of his self-respect?
It would end his humilation
If just one boss from hell
Would answer his e-mail
There must be someone
Who will buy!

Gimme somma DAT!

Oooooh, finally had an interview that left me wanting the job. No cross-examination; no extremely disconcerting drawbacks. Just three very lovely ladies who obviously enjoy their work and who have been recogized for their efforts with promotions, raises, and really good secure careers! The job is interesting and pays well and it's in a low-stress but high-responsibility state agency in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico. They hope to make a decision for the job tomorrow. PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME

I think they liked me, they really liked me!

Deep breath. Like I said in a recent blog, no matter what happens I'll end up dead - if I get this job, maybe I'll die wrapped in a serape, sitting in front of a kiva stove in my own cute little adobe ranchito. Or is that ranchero? Well I don't mean covered in salsa and nacho cheese, folks!

One down, two to go

I had my telephone interview for the language school management position today. It went all right, I guess.

If selected, I would spend six months in San Francisco or Los Angeles (probably living in some sort of shared-housing situation, considering the salary), then be sent somewhere OVER WHICH I WOULD HAVE NO CONTROL to be a director or assistant director of one of their schools. Could be Santa Barbara, could be Detroit, could be Beverly Hills, could be Boise . . . . you get the picture.

Sigh.

I've been in charge of where I live since I moved away from home the day after high school graduation. MY choice, always. That's 30 years of picking the town I lived in, even when I picked Lawndale, California (inside joke for all you kids familiar with the "South Bay").

Yes, I could make the best out of any place they sent me. Good ol' Steve, the jolly big guy who plasters a smile on his moist face and bellows out a hearty baritone chuckle at even the direst situation. And like I said, I could be sent somewhere great. Hartford, Charleston, New York, Portland, Maryland, Phoenix - they all have their charm. Who knows, I might even get to like CASper, Wy-O-O-O-ming, right? I mean, so long as I got all cowpokey and learned to spit tobacky juice in a manly way, thereby preventing a trip to a deserted wheat field and some cranium kicking by locals who don't cotton to no goddam fags from San Fran Sissie, yuck yuck. Actually I'm less concerned about gay bashing as about limited access to good Thai food.

But we shall see, won't we? That's the wonderful thing about a job search - eventually, it's over, and there you are, at a desk somewhere, pondering the warped changes you've been through.

Bring on the post-search mind-numbing what-have-I-done period, and make it snappy, sailor!

TWO interviews tomorrow.

"Who will buy my sweet red roses?"

I have three job interviews this week.

Job number one is the management trainee position for the language school company I work for, which would involve spending six months in a very cool big city somewhere (like San Francisco or New York), followed by a couple of years someplace else over which I would have no say. Caspar, Wyoming, for example. This is starting to feel like a shoe-in, and I think it might be a hoot, but don't count your chickens before they're hatched/there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip/a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush/more tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones/if at first you don't succeed, try try again/if you can keep your head about you when all else are losing theirs, you may have failed to completely grasp the situation.

Job number two is a state job in Santa Fe, so vague in description and duties that I have no comment (a rare situation for me). The administrative person who called me about the interview mumbled so badly that I'm not completely sure which agency I'm interviewing with. I hope there's a plaque on the office door to give me a hint.

Job number three is a gig reading Tarot on the phone from home for a Psychic Readers-esque company "Not affiliated with Dionne Warwick."

This will give you an idea just how wide I'm throwing the net.

Other jobs stand just over the horizon - a member development position for a prestigious museum in Sante Fe; a federal job coordinating litigation in environmental cases; and something that has rather piqued my Mickey Rooney Can-Do spirit - a FEMA job helping to clean up the administrative mess left by Hurricane Toady down in Nawlins. That I am even contemplating living somewhere humid is a testament to my bravery/desperation/weight loss. I mean, Stevie in the deep south? I'll be changing my name to Sweatface Piggly Wiggly.

I did two brave things today.

(1) I withdrew my application for the make-copies-till-you-croak job. Just don't want to do that for a living (and, honestly, just don't want the humiliation of being turned down for such a sad little job).

(2) I bought a bright green Izod polo shirt with - gasp - horizontal stripes. As any chubby will tell you, this is a catastrophic adipose no-no on a par with eating a big, dripping triple scoop ice cream cone in the street in front of strangers on a hot August day without access to napkins.

Tomorrow I will do another brave thing: keep trying to believe in myself.

[inhale]
It. will. work. out. I. know. it. will.
[exhale]

A job interview story - part 2

They're calling my references. Can it be that they want me? Or are they just going through the paces of "being fair?" Still, it may be that I will get an offer in the next couple of days. What am I gonna do?

So now comes the math.

Current job - definitely over by October; probably over by September; possibly over by August (the boss is scheduled to come flying in here, like Idina Mensel, in early August for "a visit.")

Possible future jobs that I want - will take months because of the lengthy procedures feds follow in hiring.

This job - pros - sort of in the field I'm looking to get back into. Will last through the end of the year at least, and probably longer than that. Would put me back in the public sector, which possibly makes me more appealing for the federal jobs I really want. The clerical people I'd work with are sweet.

This job - cons - low pay, low skilled labor, lots of making copies, a non-permanent position, probably won't be there very long (unless they offer me something different at a higher pay rate).

Possible future outcomes:

(1) I turn down the job; my current job runs out; I try to find a job as an unemployed person; I never get work; I'm turned out into the streets by an uncaring housemate; I die in a gutter.

(2) I turn down the job; my current job keeps going until December; I get offered a fabulous federal job in November; I die in a three-bedroom split level.

(3) I take the job; I get a strange skin disease caused by contact with toner; I have health insurance so I can get treatment; I bravely carry on with my copying duties, even though great chunks of skin slough off me constantly; I'm offered a non-copying job after the custodian complains about the flake problem; I die in a studio apartment.

(4) I take the job; they recognize my superior skills and appreciate my cheerful demeanor so much that they promote me to a more interesting and higher paying job; I get offered a fabulous federal job in November; I die in a loft condominium.

(5) I take the job; I resent every moment I spend in front of the copier, remembering all the "truly important" work I used to do; I develop angina; one day the copier jams and after remaining in a squatting position for over a minute trying to clear the jam, I fall to the floor, dead.

Melancholy Aftermath - a job interview story

My cyberfriends Alexandra and Sheila are actors and they bravely go on audition after audition, putting themselves on the line in the brutal world of show biz. I find it bitterly ironic that we demand actors, who by nature and training are some of the most sensitive artists we have, to undergo this harsh, sometimes agonizing process just to find work. Auditioning must be like having to get an emotional delousing - or a decontamination scrub-down a la Silkwood.

I was thinking of Sheila and Alex yesterday when I went on a job interview.

The job as advertized was an interesting-sounding litigation support paralegal and the pay range was low but tolerable. Within five minutes in the interview I learned that the job was really the "make-ten-copies-and-deliver-them-to-the-attorney" type, it was a temporary position, and the salary would be the exact bottom of the range stated. So there I was, a middle-aged, middle-careered, gray-haired fat man with years of experience doing complex paralegal work, auditioning for a job requiring no experience, no skill, and much better suited to a young, energetic, just-starting-out person still living at home.

It was a nightmare.

Four people interviewed me: two attorneys and two assistants. We sat in a tiny, crowded meeting room. I kept the smile plastered to my face and tried to come up with articulate answers to their simple questions.

"What experience have you had that makes you believe you could do this job?" Oh, umm, I've made copies before, dude, and I even know about the 'collate' button. Did you read my resume prior to the interview? Maybe one of the three federal judges I have listed as references might elucidate you to that, my friend.

"Do you understand that the salary is $10.28 per hour and that the position runs out in November and that you won't have a desk or anything?" Gee, sounds grrrrrrrreat!! Is there a stinking little employee lounge that smells like mildew and has big signs all over like DON'T STEAL OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD FROM THE FRIDGE and CLEAN YOUR OWN COFFEE CUPS? Because that would be the piece de resistance!!

"What do you think is your greatest strength and your worst weakness?" Well, my greatest strength is being able to smile at you at this moment when my brain is shrieking like a banshee, and my worst weakness is my inability to announce out loud that the job is a crock and the advertizing was false and I wouldn't take this job if I was addicted to toner.

"Are you willing to use one-tenth of your abilities and one-tenth of your brain to make one-tenth what you're worth and accomplish one-tenth of what you could?" Okay, they didn't ask that question.

I left the interview and fell into the mightiest funk.

If they offered me the job (and frankly, they shouldn't), am I desperate enough to say yes? What if nothing else comes along? Is this what it comes to, begging for scraps?

I managed to avoid hitting a fast-food joint on the way home by purposefully taking a circuitous route through prairies and barrios, and I was prepared for the post-interview emotional tumult (I had poached some chicken the night before), so the fallout was minimal physically, but I'm a little bit shot to shit this morning, feeling terribly insecure and uncertain. And I know, there's other jobs out there, there's other interviews, there's something GREAT just waiting for me, and I'll be fine, and God will provide, yadda yadda yadda, but right now, at this moment, it's hard to feel great about myself. How do you do it, Alex and Sheila? How do you swallow the rejection without taking it personally? And how do you keep hope alive?

If I were a trained actor with strong experience and memories of thunderous applause, rave reviews, triumphant performances and the respect of my peers, I'd have a damned hard time auditioning for a one-line part in a potato chip commerial - "Gee, they're crispy!" - and not getting it. I'd need to spend the evening in bed, wearing a tattered kimono, nipping at a bottle of burbon, chain-smoking, popping Milk Duds, dolefully turning the pages of my old scrapbooks of clippings and reviews, and woozily singing along with Peggy Lee. "Is that all there is?" Maybe, Peggy, maybe so.

"God, I hope I get, I hope I get it . . . . . I really need this job, please God I need this job, I've got to get this job . . . "

"There's gotta be something better than this, there's gotta be something better to do . . . "

All right, now that I got that out of my system I think I'll go wash the car.

And try not to eat a burger.