In the last seven months, I have applied for over 30 jobs. They range from full time, part time, on site, telecommute, contract, temporary, legitimate, under-the-table, and whatever else defines American employment these days.<\/p>\n
I was the verge of finding employment\u2014then I lost it again, again and again.<\/p>\n
The following jobs were lost because of membership in the Registry of Sexual Offense. None of this is made up.<\/p>\n
Grant writer for a church<\/p>\n
GED instructor for adults<\/p>\n
Grant writer for faith-based homeless shelter<\/p>\n
Communications coordinator for a hospital<\/p>\n
Patient referral specialist for a hospital<\/p>\n
Grant writer for tree conservation non profit<\/p>\n
Elections clerk<\/p>\n
Bridge tender<\/p>\n
Grant writer\/development assistant for land trust non profit<\/p>\n
Grant writer\/development assistant for environmental education center<\/p>\n
Job coach for mentally disabled adults<\/p>\n
Job coach for adults with mental illness<\/p>\n
Academic adviser for older adults attending community college<\/p>\n
Recreational assistant for residential care center for adults with mental illness<\/p>\n
Driver for mentally disabled adults<\/p>\n
Ghostwriter for an online dating site<\/p>\n
Curriculum designer for online education provider<\/p>\n
Grant writer\/development assistant for hospital<\/p>\n
Editorial content provider for chain of pot shops<\/p>\n
Prison chaplain<\/p>\n
It has become obvious to me in recent months that unless a miracle of humanity occurs, I will not be able to find a job commensurate with my education level, that utilizes my abilities, draws upon my wealth of experiences, or that enables me to help people or the planet.<\/p>\n
And that would be for the rest of my working life. How I will survive financially is a complete unknown, a lost world of terrifying uncertainty.<\/p>\n
This blog is not the proper forum for an exploration of my total economic marginalization in American society.<\/p>\n
That forum will come later. I’m still considering its design. A broadsheet is possible. Maybe a TED TALK. Now that would be the pariah gig of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
I did find one job. Custodian. I worked one night alongside a janitorial Zen master who unlocked some fascinating portals for observing behaviors generally unseen in American life. Believe me, I took advantage of this opportunity and observed. There is a book or television show in these observations, yes, make it a show. We need a good custodian show. Make him a writer, too, the writer who’s writing a book while working as a custodian. It turned out well for Raymond Carver and Stephen King.<\/p>\n
As I said, I worked one night. Then I quit. An epiphany occurred during my one night stand as a custodian. A new special creative power originated within me. I was vacuuming at the time. Or was it cleaning toilets in the secret complex of one of our nation’s great corporate destroyers of worldwide watersheds?<\/p>\n
An exploration of that moment is coming later, too.<\/p>\n\n
In the last seven months, I have applied for over 30 jobs. They range from full time, part time, on site, telecommute, contract, temporary, legitimate, under-the-table, and whatever else defines American employment these days. I was the verge of finding employment\u2014then I lost it again, again and again. The following jobs were lost because of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lost-and-found","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2752,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions\/2752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}