Waiting Tables

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Four years of college, a hundred thousand dollars in debt, graduated with honors, more than a hundred applications sent out, but no job. She’s waiting tables in a local restaurant, and waiting is the irony. It truly is what she’s doing, waiting. Trying. Hoping. Trying to hope.

People think they are being helpful. “You need to enlarge your geographical spread of applications.” I’ve sent them all over the country, even to places I don’t really want to live. “Maybe you should retrain.” I’ve just finished college, and I’ll be in debt for the rest of my life. Sure, I’ll retrain. Then I’ll be twice as deep in debt and unemployed in two fields.

She took the course on résumé writing. More money gone. She took the workshop on interviewing, on how to suck up to human resources people. She even tried some of the tactics – hated herself for the cloying things she said, wanted to stick her finger down her throat. But didn’t get a job.

“You need to network.” Right, network. Waste more time on social media, go to gatherings of people who can’t get jobs, make connections. Yes, networking worked for my friends who have gotten jobs: they networked with their own parents who had connections. Am I supposed to find new parents with connections?

She doesn’t go to church services any more, not so much because she doesn’t care about God (although her faith is strained just now) as because she’s sick of listening to advice from older people who can tell her offhandedly what she’s not doing right. She’s tired of explaining, of rehearsing her frustration and shame for near-strangers who begin their questioning with, “Are you still . . . ?” Yeah, I’m still looking for a job. Thanks for reminding me. That’s why I came to church you know – to be reminded of my failure by someone wise who knows even less about it than he cares.

Will she soon be among the passed over? The already picked over applicant pool? The rejects? The not chosen? Disqualified because she’s been looking so long?

“Miss, what’s taking so long for our drinks to come?”