We have all felt the anxiety of trying to find a new job. We wonder how we will be treated, and we wonder whether the pay will make us feel that the day was worth it, and then we wonder how much vacation time we'll be allowed and whether the money we make will pay for Cancun or not. Then we think how differently it would all be run if we were the ones in charge.
This is the anxiety of the employed. Today I feel for the first time the anxiety of the employer. My husband and I incorporated, limitedly in the liability sort of way, and announced to the world and the State of New Jersey that we were henceforth a company involved in trucking and delivery. We did the whole thing online, and it cost 125 USD, and it was so easy. By the time it was done I wanted to do another one; it's so neat to watch the computer give you a number that starts with 20- that gives you the power to give a person a job, money in his pocket, a place to go during the working day, a purpose.
Yes, yes, a crappy purpose. My husband and I are willing to offer you the chance at 100 USD daily with free cardio and weight training thrown in, plus (this I haven't mentioned to The Pollito, but it seems like a good thing to do) a cake on your birthday and a gift basket come Christmas and Easter. You have to lift furniture, some of which you're going to think is ugly and not worth the money and not terribly appropriate to the room it's going into. You work right with my husband, who doesn't always hear what you're telling him and who, after working for 20 days, will have 20 of your pens. Is this what your mother dreamed you'd be when she nursed you in the wee smalls, gazing out into a lightening sky and imagining a future sky with a brilliant offspring striding purposefully under it?
No.
If, however, events turned and brought you to that spot and under this particular drizzly March sky, and you somehow agreed to take the position, then you must know that someone counted on you being there. He will get by without you, don't you worry. If you agreed to take the position, someone else will, too. This is where we are this morning. We've got a truckload of furniture, and only one skinny Costa Rican to put it where it belongs. All we wanted was another able-bodied guy.
I feel sorry that the guy didn't show. He has a wife and a son, and a life. The job would have given them enough to get by on. The wife works, too. Between what we're paying and what she brings in, they might have afforded every necessity and a few luxuries, and been able to send a little back home to family. Now, he's a guy without a job. I wish we could have done something for him.