workingfortheman.com

Sometimes "working for the man" can be a totally degrading and dehumanizing experience. This experience can only be topped (in its humiliation factor) by the experience of begging the man to hire you. Summer is here, school is out and I am job hunting. I decided to go back to school after a couple of years in the workforce and this experience (both work and school), rather than making me more appealing as an employee, has made me virtually un-employable. All I want, in terms of work for this summer, is something with as little responsibility as possible. If I can get away with only working part-time, that would be perfect. Managers look at my resume and assume that I am after their job, and I don't even get an interview. I have been flat out rejected, insulted, and hung up on by people who, a year ago, would not have been qualified to work for me.

Last week I had an interview at the local video store. Tanya (we'll call her), the store manager, was three years my junior (she informed me). She was heavily tattooed and had at least two visible facial piercings. She didn't even try to contain her sneer as she looked at my resume: "Uh, so why exactly do you want to work for our video store?" she asked dubiously. After a 15 minute interview I was satisfied that I had convinced her that all I wanted was summer work and that I was not interested in her job or any other job that involved any title other than "Video Store Clerk."

At the end of our interview, she sighed: "You have to do a test." She sounded resigned. "A test?" I asked, "Sure no problem." I was confident. I mean, how hard could a video store test be? What kind of questions could they possibly ask? A few minutes later I found myself seated on an empty box in the store stock room with a stubby pencil and a little multiple choice booklet. The test was basically a personality test. It included about a hundred questions. Most of the questions were essentially the same but phrased slightly differently. The test appeared to have two main focuses: one was the acceptability of stealing from one's employer and the other was on one's propensity towards physical violence. The questions were multiple choice and designed to confuse the poor test taker by being cunningly phrased both positively and then negatively, such as:

"I believe that when someone pushes me too far, it is ok to hit them" with boxes ranging from "Absolutely yes" to "Absolutely not", followed immediately by: "Physical violence is never acceptable in the workplace" with possible answers ranging from "Agree" to "Disagree."

Now I'm not going to say that I've never stolen from my employer. I know what constitutes employee theft and the six-pack of post-it notes sitting on my desk and the twelve-pack of pencil leads in my pencil case certainly does. But I've never embezzled funds or anything, and when asked in the black and white terms of multiple choice, I certainly don't believe that it's okay to steal from one's employer. At least I would never tell a prospective employer that I thought that minor theft was not only all right, but something that should be factored in as inevitable. Intuitively I knew that wouldn't go over well.

As for physical violence, well that one was easy. Not only have I never hit someone seriously, I don't even have the urge to...all that often. The only urges that I ever have to physical violence are in the most passive, fantasy-realm possible. They are the same caliber as the urges that I have to bounce off the side of the oncoming subway train and to throw myself off high balconies, or kiss figures of authority when they are speaking to me. They are not urges that give way to anything except slight synaptic firings in my brain.

I figured that I was in the clear. I was emphatic in my answers, I assumed that a certain number of points would be accorded to each answer, so why go part way? I would NEVER dream of stealing from my employer, I STRONGLY BELIEVE that the customer is always right. It's only a shame that they didn't request my first born in this standard form, multiple choice booklet -- I would have signed him away with confidence.

When I went back to see if I got the job, Tanya told me that I had failed the test. I was stunned. I've taken a lot of tests in my life: I have a driver's license, I have a high enough LSAT score to have been accepted to law school, I scored well enough on the Accident and Sickness insurance brokers test to be licensed -- And yet I'm not suitable to work at a video store! It's strangely fitting. When I asked Tanya how I could have possibly failed the test to work at a video store, she said with a small smirk: "You lied on it. Everyone has at least thought of stealing from their employers or hitting someone."

Too true, too true.

Rusty Valentine lives in a basement apartment in Vancouver. She has gone back to school in an effort to become "the man." Until that happens she is grateful to have found a job making minimum wage.

Read her first Working For the Man story: I Respected My Elders... Until I Had to Take Their Calls

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