As much as I needed work, this obviously wasn’t the place for me. I wasn’t going to wait around any longer. I got up to leave.
“Thank you,” I said and rushed out the door.
The medical office was only two blocks away. I could practically see it from my car. It sat at the corner in between two restaurants with a glass wall encasing the lobby. As I got closer, I could see yellow construction paper hands taped to the window.
There was no sign on the building above the front entrance, and when I got to the door, there was a paper taped on it with big red letters at the top saying, “Eviction.” I leaned against the glass and sighed. It was always the same game, moving from one disaster job to the next, never really finding anything worth my time.
I figured they must have paid for their ads in advance. Which was a little frustrating for me that they didn’t make sure to stop the ad.
All my life, I’d put in the work. I spent years working on my degree. Business school was one of the hardest things I ever had to go through. They had us reading five full-length textbooks in the span of three months. I had to juggle internships, jobs, and a workload that would drive anyone insane.
The teachers made failing us an art form. They engineered impossible tests and assigned us 10,000 words a night. Less than a handful of people were left in the after-graduate program. We were the only ones that could make it.
I worked harder than I ever thought possible to get my degree. I deserved something worthy of my skills. Instead, I was starting at the bottom, competing with people that had their GEDs.
The last place on my list was the non-profit. I retreated to my car to call them. The husky woman’s voice came on. “Thank you for calling. If you know your party’s extension, press one. If you’re inquiring about the receptionist position, please visit us at 46 North Stern Avenue. For all other questions, comments, and concerns, please leave a message after the beep. Thank you.” An answering machine beeped.
The building was at the eastern edge of the town, where the ghetto met the restaurants and cafes that served the office lunch crowd. There were gravel lots, meager brick buildings, and rotting cars on the edge of the road.
It was an unmarked brick building sitting on the edge of the corner next to a laundromat. I parked my car in the lot in back and walked around to the front. The office was small, with a single room behind the desk and thin carpeting.
Nobody was around, so I sat in a chair in the lobby. Toys were scattered around the floor, and a tiny shelf of mismatched children’s books sat on the far wall.
A woman emerged from a back room. “Hi, can I help you?” She was a large woman with a bright red face and curly yellow hair.
“Yes.” I got up to hand her my resume. “I’m here to inquire about the receptionist position.”
She took my resume and scanned it over.
“The ad didn’t say anything about the job,” I said.
“Here.” She handed me the resume ba
ck. “That’s because we don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because we work with children.”
My instinct was to run out the door, but I didn’t have very many options. “What’s the charity called?”
“Hands of Love.” She turned on her computer and stared at the startup screen.
“What exactly is the ad for?” I leveled with her. “What do you do?”
“We work with low-income families to get them in touch with services.” She turned away from the computer.
“Services?”
She lifted a white binder off the desk below and set it on the counter. “Look it over.”
It was an extensive list of charities and government services. “This is wonderful,” I said.
“Thank you,” the woman beamed. “I guess you could call me a case manager. I work with the families, find out their needs, and I send them where they need to go.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking the position,” I said. “If you’re willing to hire me.”
“Well, you definitely qualify.” She looked me up and down. “I’ll have to do a background check, of course, but that won’t take more than a day.” She ducked down and pulled a paper off the desk. “Go ahead and fill out this application. I’ll be with you in a bit.” The woman disappeared into the back room.