Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office : A Memoir (12 page)

I converse with the kind men in the snazzy matching outfits about my goals and aspirations for a few more minutes. As they natter on about duty, honor, and country, it occurs to me that most government employees don’t wear uniforms. Or have such short hair. Or glossy, glossy shoes. OR NEATLY FOLDED MAPS! Suddenly all the flags and pictures of tanks and submarines on the walls make sense…I walked into the Armed Forces recruiting center located conveniently
next door
to the unemployment office.

Like the mature adult/consummate professional I strive to be, I shriek and run away.

OK, we’ll try this again. This time I walk through the doors marked with an Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) logo, where security personnel are already laughing at me, having just witnessed my Great Escape.

“Don’t feel like being all you can be today?” a smart-mouthed guard in a shoddy security jacket asks.

“Those doors should really be marked a little more clearly. I practically enlisted, thinking I was signing up for benefits,” I reply. “Or maybe that’s the plan? Kind of a good idea, if you consider it. Anyway, can you please tell me where I should go to file a new claim, or would you prefer to make more fun of me first?”

The guard’s cohort answers, “The few, the proud, and the unemployed need to go over to that station to fill out forms.” They continue to snicker and nudge each other.

“Thank you,” I say, whipping around only to slam into a short pole supporting canvas dividing ropes. I untangle myself and stomp over to the table to grab the paperwork, the guffaws barely fading from earshot. As if being here wasn’t humiliation enough!

I complete reams of forms and wait my turn to bring them to the counter for a clerk’s inspection. A bored man with an absurdly high voice glances at my work history and tosses the form back at me.

“You didn’t complete this. Fill it out and come back,” he says shrilly.

“Right here it says I can attach a résumé instead,” I reply, handing my packet back. “See? Here’s my résumé.”

“Well, it wasn’t attached,” he hisses. Whoa, pal. Take it down a couple of octaves, will you? You’re making the neighborhood dogs howl.

I reach across his desk and grab his stapler, attaching the pages. I give the form back to him. “It is now,” I say, while batting my eyelashes prettily at him.

He sucks in his cheeks as he tears through the sheets on the prowl for more mistakes. Finding none, he smashes a stamp down a couple of times and whips another stack of questionnaires at me. “Take these and sit over there with those people until your group is called,” he squeaks. Under his breath, he adds,
“Miss Prada.”

“Okey-dokey,” I reply. “Best of luck shattering those wine-glasses.”

I soak in the atmosphere while I wait. Except for security, I’ve yet to see any of the IDES workers smile. This place is so depressing, no wonder everyone is cranky. The tiled ceilings are low, oppressive, and stained by rusty, leaking water pipes. Everything is industrial gray—the walls, the cubicles, the chairs, the floors, and even the employees’ pallor. The few dead rubber tree plants do nothing to increase the ambience. Windows are long and smudged, affording a stunning vista of the rutted parking lot and the Dumpsters behind McDonald’s. The blinding afternoon sun is not contained by the bent, filthy venetian blinds and dust motes float in the air. The only sounds are the constant drone of straining printers and a few crying children. It’s like a Dilbert cartoon, minus the whimsy.

At one thirty, my group enters a small holding room for a briefing on the intricacies of making a biweekly phone call to the IDES. Ten of us shuffle in, and I take a surreptitious glance at my unemployed brethren. I notice I’m the only one not wearing a flannel shirt and construction boots. The small, angry woman running the meeting stares me up and down, her eyes narrowing when they reach the label of my bag. I get the feeling I made a bad wardrobe choice today. Finally, she snags the forms out of my hand and thumbs through the pages until she gets to my salary history. I assume her grunt is not one of pleasure, and I notice she doesn’t request anyone else’s paperwork. She rips away one of the sheets before returning the packet to me.

She begins her presentation.

In Spanish.

I raise my hand. “Excuse me, but did I do this wrong? Should I be in another group? I don’t speak Spanish.”

Small Angry Woman rolls her eyes. “No, but since everyone else here is Hispanic, I thought it would be easier for them to understand the presentation in their own language,” she retorts. “But if you need to have it
your
way, fine, I speak English.” Nine sets of dark, unhappy eyes glare at me. Oh, come on. It is NOT unreasonable to expect to hear my native tongue in a US government office.

With thinly veiled contempt, Small Angry Woman explains the call-in process. Every two weeks, I’ll answer a litany of questions about whether I searched for a job. Apparently I’m only obligated to put in three applications every two weeks.
⁶⁴
She concludes by spelling out what to do with the final form. I riffle through all my paperwork, and I can’t find the sheet she’s talking about. When she asks if there are any questions, I raise my hand again. “Um, hi, I don’t have that form—” I start to explain.

“Then why are you in here taking up someone else’s space? You were supposed to have all your paperwork completed before you came in,” she roars.

“As I was saying, I don’t have that form
because you tore it out of my packet.”

“No, I most certainly did—”

“Ma’am, it’s sitting right in front of you.” I point at the form, which is partially obscured by her pile of things, and she turns red.

“You’re all done, dismissed,” she says aggressively, sliding the document toward me before grabbing her binder and storming out of the room

“Oh, that’s OK,” I call after her. “Accidents happen. Apology accepted!”

My final hurdle is to sit at the bank of antiquated computers I may have once played Pong on in 1982 and register on the state’s job search Web site. Initially, I’m happy to do so. I figured they might have opportunities not listed on places like Monster. But after an hour of encountering nothing but minimum-wage-paying jobs that require a broom and a strong back, I wave the computer area supervisor over to where I’m sitting.

“Hi, I have a question,” I say.

“About what?” the supervisor replies.

“Can you tell me, am I inputting the search string correctly? Every time I add my information, I get back janitorial and manufacturing openings.”

“What are you askin’?”

“I guess I’m looking for something a bit more challenging.”

“Industrial cleaning is very challenging. Ever tried it?”

“Um, no, can’t say that I have. I’m looking for a position commensurate with my experience, and I don’t see any. Do you know if there’s different criteria I should list in order to see the better jobs?”

“You sayin’ you’re too good to work any of these jobs? What, you too mighty to get your hands dirty? Will it mess up your nail polish?”

“No, it’s just that I have a college degree and—”

“Oooh, college degree…so you’re sayin’ you’re too smart to take one of these jobs? You askin’ for special privileges?”

What the hell is wrong with these people? Why are they all so freaking rude? As far as I know, my only crime is carrying an expensive bag,
which I paid for myself with my old high-paying job.
It’s not like my benefits checks will be coming out of their pockets, so there’s no reason to be so surly, especially since I don’t want to be here any more than they want me to be here.

With my most winning Miss America–style grin, I reply, “What I’m sayin’ is I’m completely overqualified for every position I’ve come across so far. What I’m askin’ is, do you have any job listings that don’t suck?”

Ring, ring, ring…

“Uh-huh…uh-huh…Let me ask you this: Is there really a demand for encyclopedias these days? According to IBM’s advertising department, we have the sum total of human existence at our fingertips through the Internet. Why would anyone need to buy your book? Hello…hello?”

Ring, ring, ring…

“I’m so excited you called! I’ve followed your company’s stock for years! It’s such a solid buy—you really can’t go wrong with pharmaceuticals…. Sure, I used to visit physicians’ offices all the time when I worked for the insurance company…. Oh, I see…. No, I wasn’t aware…Um, yes, considering I get my legs waxed because I practically throw up each time I cut them with a razor, I probably
would
have a problem going into the OR to demonstrate your newest cardiac tool on a live patient…. OK, then, thanks for your time, and please keep me in mind if you need someone for a noninvasive product.”

“I’m home,” Fletch calls as he brushes the snow off his shoulders, hangs up his coat, and stows his computer bag in the closet.

I’d been so bored with my own company over the past few months that I’d taken to pouncing on him the moment he walked in, assaulting him with verbal diarrhea on the minutiae of my day. But now I’m making a concerted effort to let him unwind for a moment before attacking him with attention. His job isn’t going as well as he’d like, so I figure I should try harder to give him a relaxing home life.
⁶⁵

Recently, I’ve focused my energy on e-mailing friends, and it’s been nice to reconnect. However, I’m always slightly disappointed when I only receive a few paragraphs in return, especially when I send them huge, multipage missives.

“How are you?” I ask. “You look cold. Do you want some of that hot chocolate you gave me for Valentine’s Day?”

“Yes, please. My day was not great. The corporate brass came down on Clark about a couple of his processes, so naturally he went ballistic and spent the rest of the morning spouting off like a lunatic. Then he felt bad and took us out to lunch at his favorite hot dog joint, but once we got there, he yelled at us some more. At what point did screaming until the tendons of your neck stick out become the preferred method of talking to network engineers? I feel like I’ve been through the wringer.”

I’m infuriated every time I hear about his boss, Clark’s, unprofessional behavior. It’s not that Fletch isn’t tough, but every time Clark treats him like his naughty child, it brings up a slew of unpleasant adolescent memories of his abusive father. Frankly, I’m glad the old man is dead, because I’d have an awfully hard time trying to be nice to him at family gatherings. Do you know he never once told Fletch he’d done a good job or that he was proud of him, even after the Army sent him to the prep school at West Point because he was one of the best and brightest enlisted men? He scored almost 1400 on his SATs yet his parents still thought he’d do better at a vocational/technical trade school than at a college proper. I’ve spent years trying to build up the esteem his parents so causally trod upon.

“What’s his problem?” I reach in the cabinet and pull out matching mugs and begin to heat the milk in a saucepan.

“I’m not sure. It’s been much worse lately. I heard one of the women in the office filed a complaint against him because he came on to her at the Christmas party, so that may be the cause.”

“Isn’t he married?”

“With children.”

“He’s truly vile, isn’t he?” I stir the milk to keep it from scalding.

“You don’t know the half of it. But I don’t want him ruining my night, too, so tell about your day.”

“You won’t believe who I heard from,” I say.

“Are you going to make me guess?”

“No, I won’t torture you. Actually, I heard from a couple of people. Courtney says hey and she dumped the Chadifornicator. Guess she finally got her head out of her ass, eh? She wants to know if you have any cute friends.”

“I don’t keep track of which of my friends are cute.”

“That’s OK. I bet I can think of someone. Anyway, the big news is I talked to Camille. Remember, she was the annoying granola account executive at Corp. Com.? She ran into a guy who’s recently launched an organization that does what Corp. Com. does. He’s looking for people, and Camille thought of me—she sent me this guy’s contact information. His name is Ross and he’s the founder. We chatted this afternoon, and I have an interview with him tomorrow.”

“A start-up? I thought you said no start-ups. Too much risk.”

I hand Fletch the steaming mug of cocoa, which I’ve dotted with whipped cream and covered with vanilla sprinkles. He takes a sip and smiles. I can actually see some of the tension slip away from his shoulders. “Yes and no. They
are
a start-up, but they just received millions in venture capital. They’re totally funded for the next few years. The founder seems sharp and he thought my experience would be an asset. So we’ll see how tomorrow goes.”

“Outstanding!” he says and starts to high-five me. I try to slap his palm, and as always, I miss.

“In less exciting news, my money hasn’t come yet.”

“You’re kidding.”

For the fourth time in as many months, my unemployment check is missing. Fortunately, it happens so often I’m now a pro at refiling. The first time it didn’t show up, I checked my instruction booklet. After reading and rereading, I still couldn’t figure out what to do, so I called the IDES. Fifteen minutes and a dozen voice mail menus later, I finally reached a live person. When I explained who I was and what happened, the Small Angry Woman on the other end of the line said, “Oh, yes,
Miss Prada
, I remember YOU.”

And right then I knew I was in for a LONG wait.

My first interview with Ross at the start-up goes so well I’m invited for a second interview. The second interview is even better than the first, and I’m asked back a third time. Since Ross and I have already discussed everything under the sun at this point, I assume I’m getting an offer when I show up for my fourth interview.

Silly me.

Instead, I’m brought into a conference room, where I’m to interview with Ross
again
and his special guest…gah! It’s WILL! I’m pretty sure my jaw hits the table when I see him.