A little something nice

I do not know anyone who has a real job. By real job, I mean one that pays a decent livable wage. My peers and I work those low-skill minimum wage jobs in environments motivated by maximum profit. For me, that meant an understaffed work place and unrealistic physical demands. I lost fifty pounds and my sanity. I had to quit.

I haven’t been able to land another job since, besides a relatively short stint as a substitute teacher for the county. I never even received a call back for any the positions I've applied for, but even if I were to land an interview, my work history seems pretty spotty.

Why did you leave your last job? They’ll ask first.

Well, I was micromanaged to death by people who stole money from the cash registers and I felt the job was putting my health in general at risk. I was in pain constantly and losing weight to where I began to appear skeletal. That, despite what I said on the psychological profiling quiz I took when I was hired, I came to realize ratting out theft is frowned upon because almost everyone in power did it.

They’d brush me off for all that. Not loyal to the company. He's a bitter former employee; we do not want him to be bitter at us. How dare he quit anyways, doesn't he know that the only acceptable means of leaving a job is being layed off? We expect dedication, but don't expect it from us.


To put this into some sort of context, I am 22 and just graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of South Florida.

Here are a few job prospects in New Tampa that have a decent number of employees. I worked a few of these places in high school/college:
Publix (x4), Sweetbay (x2), Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Papa John's, Macaroni Grill, Chili's, TGIFriday's, Ruby Tuesday's, Muvico, Michael's...

(USAA and whatever that place is behind Muvico seem to be the only "corporate" jobs available in the area. USAA's career website lists job postings for every other office except the one here in Florida.)

My first job in 2003 paid $5.75. My last job in 2008 paid $7.25 which was considered a "good wage" because I worked closing shift and had a lot more work than other people. The cheapest rent in New Tampa would be the Heritage Pines Apartments in Cross Creek... fixed-income housing. I had a friend who lived there. $600 a month. They don't rent to students. The jobs I listed above prefer not to schedule anyone on a full-time basis besides managers who have a habit of milking the clock.

At the moment, I am so weak I can hardly get out of bed and have barely had anything to eat in a week because I can’t afford it.

I fear my mental faculties are declining. Only those can afford help usually seek it out.

I stopped at the Hillsborough County Department of Health yesterday to get a few things taken care of. I was escorted into the “check-in” area after filling out the shortest information form ever and sat down at a desk designed like a visitor’s center in a prison, with a glass divider between me and the county health worker. She spoke through a microphone, unconcerned as to whether I was able to actually hear what she was saying. Do they fear for their safety when dealing with people in situations like me?

During the drive home on interstate 75 aimed toward New Tampa, I wondered what happened to my peers. Surely I'm not alone in this. I only know one other person besides myself who graduated college; the rest have either dropped out, had kids, ended up in jail or rehab, or are still the 20-something babies living in the seclusion of a gated community.

On that drive I wondered whether the dreams I once aspired to reach were even mine at all. A house, a family, a reliable car. Was I was raised to want dreams as created by businesses and developers, who in turn built up pointless services and products to sell? They priced everything so high that it's all unattainable for me, and has been for a long while. My stomach grumbles while millions are spent on eye-catching packaging and marketing gimmicks.

But still, I’m tail-gaited by an SUV and a Hummer when I take the Bruce B. Downs exit. I want to count them like the sounds of birds to gauge their population, those symbols of modern excess and mindless waste. They always told me indirectly that their lives were worth more important than mine. At one time I may have reacted in their favor, agreed out of intimidation or fear, but these days I'm starting to take pleasure in annoying them.

After all, isn't it people like me who support their lifestyle, buying their products and reading the newspapers they write for? They are the dentists I visit, the managers of the stores I shop, the people who ate the food I made. Just how above it are they really?

If need be, I won’t hesitate to try and ruin their empires. They ensured that mine was always a myth.

Quote

In the words of Gary Nager of the New Tampa Neighborhood News to the St. Pete Times:

"The fact is that there is a horrifying teen drug problem in this community and it's not a problem that's been brought to our area by kids who live someplace else," he wrote. "It's our 'good' kids ... for whom we buy cell phones and iPods and who have more than 200 friends in their MySpace.com circles. I've never been more frightened, for my kids and yours."

Some residents, he said, lament making problems public for fear it will affect property value.

Iconoclastic

"He is so firmly and avowedly fixed in an attitude of revolt against the current notion of decency and dignity and social duty that to beg of him to be a little more decent, to fly a little less persistently and gleefully to the animal side of human nature, is simply to beg him to be something different from Mr. Swinburne."

There lived a singer in France of old
By the tideless dolorous midland sea.
In a land of sand and ruin and gold
here shone one woman, and none but she.