The Secret Decoder Ring

Things are moving quickly and it looks like our heroine may have an actual paycheck one day soon.  What a strange ride this week has been and I shall remain doubtful until the ink has dried.  Like riding the waves at Salmon Creek, this past week had multiple phone calls and energy and sideways potential rip currents that left me feeling disbelief.  However, just doing the grocery shopping tonight and being in Trader Joe's and REI in the same space of an hour blew on those coals hardly out of heat.

I have literally applied for hundreds of jobs in the last year and then some. Almost 95% of the employers never acknowledged my applications in any way.  Nothing. I came to feel that constant rebound of my qualifications in my flesh.  There is a rigid scar there where all that effluvia that bounced back, that dark rejection of self came back to cut and cause suffering.  Perhaps I had a choice in some instances how I might respond differently.  However, the lack of respect was astounding and cold.  I feel that in my thoughts as anger and shock still.  It is shocking how employers seem to view candidates. 

So I walk through these retail spaces with a view that has been tested.  I no longer simply appreciate their stage presence, I know what is behind the curtain.  Certainly young and pretty is the median.  Wacky is another facet and mostly with Trader Joe's.  The manager actually tilted his head back and looked down his nose at me when I asked if they would be hiring this fall.  Nice psychological profile buddy. I am simmering still with the impression that has been left with me by Whole Foods Market, Oliver's Market, Community Market, Grocery Outlet and Trader Joe's.

Though it seemed like a reasonable assumption over a year ago, that an entry level grocery stocker job was possible and heretofore aplenty, I came to realize that there is a secret club if you want to schlep cans and produce in a grocery store.  No one has the least bit of interest in you even if you are a dancing carrot too, unless you are wearing their secret decoder ring.