choking

Yesterday was a busy Saturday. The four-hour CPR certification class was a success and very informative. I learned CPR for adults, children and infants; adult and child bag-mask technique and rescue breathing; two-rescuer CPR for adults and children; operation of the AED (automated external defibrillator); and how to relieve choking in adults and infants. The class was probably my first experience in which the gravity and importance of being a health-care provider resonated with me on a deep, personal level. At the core, health care is about sustaining life, and saving life is as real and raw as health care gets.

A few hours after CPR class I had the aforementioned job interview. I feel confident that I’ll be offered a delivery-driver position, but I can’t say. I feel like I connected with the interviewer and, in my opinion, showed a desire for the job. The manager seemed nice enough, but I was a little turned off by some of the regulations and rules of the job. First, he stressed that when you’re not out on a delivery or answering phones, you “clean, clean, clean.” Cool, because I’m not a guy who wants free time while I’m on the clock – if you keep yourself busy, the work day shuffles along. He stressed the stay-busy aspect of the position two, maybe three times, and every time I was like, Yeah, I get it, I’m down with it. What I didn’t dig, however, was the clean-shaven rule. “You’ll have to shave your beard if you want to work here. Is that OK?” I said it wasn’t a problem, but what I didn’t say was, “What the fuck, man? You call the ¼” stubble on my face a beard?” I shave my head every 2-3 days and keep the fashionable stubble on my face neatly groomed and trimmed. What gives? I’ve never walked into a business and immediately left the establishment because the unsightly scene of stubble marred the face of the clerk/waiter/whatever. This isn’t a five-star restaurant – we’re talking about a pizza joint that, besides pizza, sells Magic: The Gathering and Warcraft games, for Christ’s sake. Another thing: delivery drivers aren’t paid minimum wage, they’re paid $5.20 an hour. Some employers choose to exempt tipped employees from the federal minimum wage; after all, less for the bottom feeders means more for the pigs on top! Finally, all new employees undergo to a 90-day probationary period in which you can’t call in sick, be late, or, I assume, do anything that makes yourself unworthy in the eyes of the management. He actually said this to me: “If you’re sick, come in anyway, and if you’re too sick, we’ll find someone to come in and then you can go home.” So, this place objects to the ¼” stubble on my face but doesn’t object to sick employees preparing and delivering food?

My recent job-hunting experience has pushed my loathing of capitalism to the brink (I plan on expanding this point in a future post). Over the past couple of weeks, I have had to answer countless humiliating questions; most of these questions have come online and in the form of employee questionnaires. The naked motive of these questions is simple: To what depths are you willing to exploit yourself for the benefit of the company? It’s disgusting. Obviously, some minimum-wage applicants are high school and college students who are simply looking for some extra cash, but many of those applicants are adults, many with families, who have expenses that far exceed those of school students. It is the working poor who are the most ripe for exploitation; never mind the stresses associated with living a life in poverty, they are routinely picked and employed for wages that would be laughable if they weren’t so disgustingly obscene.

Somebody help me, I’m choking.

xx