and—’
‘Please, keep your voice down,’ she hisses, indicating the huddled down-jacketed masses behind me.
‘No.’ I wheel around to their frightened faces. ‘You think it’s just about getting there and finding it? Well, let me tell you what happens when you get there.’ I swipe a file folder off the counter and hold it aloft. ‘See this?! This will be your new best friend! This will be your working week and your Sunday rest! So pick your color now, kids!’ I feel my arm tugged as the door buzzes open behind me. ‘I was working on a TOILET !!’
Pin-curls jerks me inside. ‘There’s no need to get bolshy. Fifteen minutes. But if a real student needs a binder, you must hand it over. I’m watching you.’
Getting a grip inside the large, musty room, I perch at the humanities table, pull out my yellow pad, and grab a binder. Only a few pages in, I see that almost all the postings have big black check marks drawn through them.
‘Excuse me? What do the black check marks mean?’
‘Filled. Sshhh.’
‘Filled?’
‘Filled, young lady, filled. Thirteen minutes.’
‘Sorry, but why are the descriptions still in here?’
She squeaks her chair out and marches over to me. ‘I will kindly remind you to keep your voice down. You are a guest here. If they get unfilled, we re-enter them.’ She returns to her desk. ‘So you’ll know what you missed. Eleven minutes.’
I roll up the sleeves on my sweater and dig for my realoptions. Fewer and farther between, they quickly blur.
Position: administrative assistant, executive assistant, slave. Starting salary: nineteen thousand, eighteen thousand, unpaid. Responsibilities: ordering new paper towels. Making coffee or coffee alternatives for our caffeine-sensitive employees. Arranging my travel, hair appointments, bikini waxes, and therapy. Held accountable for: paper-clip shrinkage, Xerox paper waste, coffee mug abandonment, Fedex, UPS, PMS, my marriage, and my weight.
Falling down a black hole of administrative misery, my eyes finally alight on a promising posting.
Position:
Starting Salary:
Responsibilities:
Held accountable for:
Research and Policy Associate
Negotiable
Working closely with Director to create female-constituent public policy proposals
Initiating and innovating organization’s agenda
Weepy with excitement, I pull the sheet out of its plastic sleeve and run to the front desk. ‘This one still available, right? There’s no check.’
Pin-curls slides on her glasses and glances down. ‘Yes, I rescanned that one myself.’ She types the code into the computer and the information screen opens. ‘You can’t read over my shoulder,’ she scolds. ‘I have to print it out for you.’
‘Okay.’ I step back.
‘No, collect your things and wait out there. Quietly .’ She gestures to the anteroom.
‘Okay!’ I pick up my stuff and run out the door to meet her again from the other side of the window, leaning from hip to hip as the listing glides out of the laser printer. I reread the scanned-in description, eagerly scrolling down to the most important information.
Contact:
Posted:
Doris Weintruck, The Center for Equity in Community
15 November
You’ve got. To be kidding.
Underneath, in her nauseatingly familiar scratch, Doris has delineated her idea of my perfect replacement. ‘Note to applicants: equal opportunity employer. Males strongly encouraged to apply.’
I somehow refrain from puking onto Pin-curls’s wool flannel lap. ‘You scanned this two months ago? Are you sure?’
She purses her lips. ‘Of course I am. I suppose you don’t even want it after all that fuss.’
‘No.’ Numbly, I slide the paper back through the window. ‘I just left it.’
‘You mean “lost it”,’ she mutters as I hopscotch over the recoiling hopefuls, run up the stairs and out the fire door, gasping for air.
I sit silently as Mrs Roberts drives through the revived sleet, so busy trying to scribble a grocery list on the backof an
‘Please, keep your voice down,’ she hisses, indicating the huddled down-jacketed masses behind me.
‘No.’ I wheel around to their frightened faces. ‘You think it’s just about getting there and finding it? Well, let me tell you what happens when you get there.’ I swipe a file folder off the counter and hold it aloft. ‘See this?! This will be your new best friend! This will be your working week and your Sunday rest! So pick your color now, kids!’ I feel my arm tugged as the door buzzes open behind me. ‘I was working on a TOILET !!’
Pin-curls jerks me inside. ‘There’s no need to get bolshy. Fifteen minutes. But if a real student needs a binder, you must hand it over. I’m watching you.’
Getting a grip inside the large, musty room, I perch at the humanities table, pull out my yellow pad, and grab a binder. Only a few pages in, I see that almost all the postings have big black check marks drawn through them.
‘Excuse me? What do the black check marks mean?’
‘Filled. Sshhh.’
‘Filled?’
‘Filled, young lady, filled. Thirteen minutes.’
‘Sorry, but why are the descriptions still in here?’
She squeaks her chair out and marches over to me. ‘I will kindly remind you to keep your voice down. You are a guest here. If they get unfilled, we re-enter them.’ She returns to her desk. ‘So you’ll know what you missed. Eleven minutes.’
I roll up the sleeves on my sweater and dig for my realoptions. Fewer and farther between, they quickly blur.
Position: administrative assistant, executive assistant, slave. Starting salary: nineteen thousand, eighteen thousand, unpaid. Responsibilities: ordering new paper towels. Making coffee or coffee alternatives for our caffeine-sensitive employees. Arranging my travel, hair appointments, bikini waxes, and therapy. Held accountable for: paper-clip shrinkage, Xerox paper waste, coffee mug abandonment, Fedex, UPS, PMS, my marriage, and my weight.
Falling down a black hole of administrative misery, my eyes finally alight on a promising posting.
Position:
Starting Salary:
Responsibilities:
Held accountable for:
Research and Policy Associate
Negotiable
Working closely with Director to create female-constituent public policy proposals
Initiating and innovating organization’s agenda
Weepy with excitement, I pull the sheet out of its plastic sleeve and run to the front desk. ‘This one still available, right? There’s no check.’
Pin-curls slides on her glasses and glances down. ‘Yes, I rescanned that one myself.’ She types the code into the computer and the information screen opens. ‘You can’t read over my shoulder,’ she scolds. ‘I have to print it out for you.’
‘Okay.’ I step back.
‘No, collect your things and wait out there. Quietly .’ She gestures to the anteroom.
‘Okay!’ I pick up my stuff and run out the door to meet her again from the other side of the window, leaning from hip to hip as the listing glides out of the laser printer. I reread the scanned-in description, eagerly scrolling down to the most important information.
Contact:
Posted:
Doris Weintruck, The Center for Equity in Community
15 November
You’ve got. To be kidding.
Underneath, in her nauseatingly familiar scratch, Doris has delineated her idea of my perfect replacement. ‘Note to applicants: equal opportunity employer. Males strongly encouraged to apply.’
I somehow refrain from puking onto Pin-curls’s wool flannel lap. ‘You scanned this two months ago? Are you sure?’
She purses her lips. ‘Of course I am. I suppose you don’t even want it after all that fuss.’
‘No.’ Numbly, I slide the paper back through the window. ‘I just left it.’
‘You mean “lost it”,’ she mutters as I hopscotch over the recoiling hopefuls, run up the stairs and out the fire door, gasping for air.
I sit silently as Mrs Roberts drives through the revived sleet, so busy trying to scribble a grocery list on the backof an
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