Getting a job—or keeping one—is a challenge in Geezerville
On Labor Day, here in that melancholy state of mind called Geezerville, memories of employment—good and bad—abound.
On the morning after my 18th birthday, my sister stormed into my Park Avenue bedroom and officially turned me into a commodity of capitalism. My meager skills would be put up for sale.
“Get cleaned up and get dressed! You’re going to get a real job! No more fooling around here fixing stereos to sell at the flea market while mom and me work like dogs all day! Hurry up! I made an appointment for you at the “Oak-Cal” employment agency for 10 a.m. Let’s go!” She bellowed.
A short time later, I was spiffed up as much as possible, but Dan, the employment counselor, sat behind his desk and told me, “You look really grubby. You look like Khrushchev with zits. Get a haircut, a white shirt and tie, and try to suck in that big gut. You’ve got a good resumé with all your electronics experience, but you look like hell. No one will hire you.”
My young ego was not only deflated, but totally ripped to shreds.
I got a haircut, a white shirt and tie, and my sister tried to cover my zits with “Glamglow” makeup, which my mom sarcastically dismissed by telling her, “Great! Now he looks like a fat “Phantom of The Opera!”
Somehow, the next morning, I passed Dan’s muster, and was sent out on my first interview, which was appropriately surreal, given this strange unfoldment of my life.
After a long bus ride down San Pablo Avenue, I entered a Radio Shack store in Richmond, where I received a rude and bizarre welcome from the manager.
“Holy moly, roly-poly! You must be Gil! I’ve been “weighting” for you, but you probably went to the donut shop next door! Hey, how many fat guys does it take to change a light bulb?”
“No idea.” I mumbled.
“None! The ladder collapsed!”
He laughed maniacally, then said, “I’m Crazy Steve, and I’m the manager, and I do claim to be crazy, so don’t pay attention to what I say!
“Swell,” I answered. “Are you going to interview me for a sales job?”
“Yeah, I’ll interview all three of you!” He giggled.
“All three of me?”
“Yep, you and your double chins! Hah! I do claim to be crazy!” The painful puns continued. “What did the newlywed woman call her fat husband?” chortled Crazy Steve.
“To dinner? I don’t know.” I responded.
“My tubby, chubby, hubby!” Crazy Steve laughed. He kept going. “Why don’t fat guys like to cross the street?”
“Because they can’t make it, I dunno.” I answered.
“Because the signal always says “weight.” You get it? Wait! Hah!”
The door chime rang, and a young woman walked in.
Crazy Steve, fortyish, unkempt, cigarette-smelly and lanky in a worn gray suit approached her and said, “Welcome! Let me get my new trainee—I call him Alameda Fats—to help you! You’re in for a big treat. Literally! Don’t mind me! I do claim to be crazy!”
The young woman, a petite brunette with a pretty smile, said “I just need batteries for my cassette player.” She looked at me. “How can you work for such a rude, weird creep?”
“I don’t,” I replied. He hasn’t hired me yet. He just makes fun of me because I’m fat”
She gave me some good advice that rhymed, “Don’t work for a jerk.”
I took it—I didn’t.
Back at the employment agency, Dan was livid. “I talked to Steve at Radio Shack, and he said that you walked out of the store with a girl, before he had a chance to interview you. What the hell, dude?”
“Did he tell you that he calls himself Crazy Steve, claims to be crazy, spent the whole time making fun of my weight, and nicknamed me Alameda Fats?
Don looked at me vacantly, relaxed, then said, “Sorry about that. But I’ve got a better interview for you at Berkeley’s biggest TV store, Dale Sandberg’s! He’s waiting, so go get that job!”
I was still sensitive from Crazy Steve’s fat puns, so when Don said “waiting,” I heard “weighting” and flinched.
The next morning. I was back at Dan’s desk, eager to learn the results of my interview with Dale Sandberg, which I thought had gone very well. To my surprise, Dan looked glum, his bushy black eyebrows touching the wire rim of his eyeglasses.
“Sandberg was impressed with your technical knowledge, but he said that his customers are more comfortable with older technicians. He said to come see him in five years when you’ve got more experience.” He mumbled.
Dan was sensitive to the Catch-22 paradox I was facing, then proposed a solution.
“If I were you, I’d take almost any job for now, and network around your electronics contacts to see if anyone will give you a chance to get some experience.”
I was frustrated, and my sister’s nagging about getting hired was relentless.
“What’s available for someone with no skills?” I asked.
Dan brightened up. “Well, if you want to flip burgers, I got a gig at the A&W Root Beer drive-in on 23rd Avenue in Oakland, and you can start tomorrow.”
The next morning, my brief but disastrous career as a fry cook began.
After the grandfatherly franchise owner made me don a hairnet, he led me into the kitchen, presided over by Rick, a short, wiry, tattooed, and muscular young guy who had cooked in the army. On that morning, appeared to be under the influence of amphetamines.
His head, arms and hands moved with frenzied, cat-like quickness. The tiny loudspeaker above the grill barked “Can I have your order?”
“Yeah, give me two Papa burgers, shut the hell up Charlene, and quit hitting your sister, Alvin Jr! Yeah, give me two Papa burgers, a Mama burger, no ketchup or pickles, a Baby burger with cheese, no relish, and three large orders of fries, with salt and pepper. Gawdammit, Charlene, I’m gonna throw your skinny ass out this car if you don’t shut the hell up!”
The speaker went silent, and with pupils so dilated that his eyeballs were black, Rick asked me “Did you get that, big boy?”
I tried to recite what I’d heard, including the drama with Charlene, and Rick responded, “Not bad, but you’re not ready for the day shift—it’s too fast. I’ll tell Mack the owner to put you on graveyard, so you can work slow and learn.”
Rick then assigned me to make their famous chili, which was made from scorched detritus from the grill.
I was shown the pantry, and given a handwritten recipe, which was stained with ketchup and grease.
I retrieved a large pot, poured in mammoth cans of tomato purée and beef broth, added a few pounds of chopped onions, and the grill scraps. Then, squinting at the part of the recipe that had been obscured by a grease blob, I stirred in 12 tablespoons of chili powder, 12 tablespoons of cumin, and 12 tablespoons of cayenne. Per the recipe, I brought the chili to a simmer, for 40 minutes.
Once it was done, it wasn’t long before an irate customer burst back into the restaurant screaming “What the hell you tryin’ to do? I been eatin’ the chili dogs here for years, but this sh*t like to burn my mouth up! I had to spit it out! Gimme my money back!”
Mack the owner tasted my chili.
After he stopped coughing, he asked, “How much cayenne did you use?”
“12 tablespoons, like the recipe said,” I answered.
Mack stared at me and barked “That recipe says ½ to one tablespoon! Can’t you read?”
I was going to point out that the recipe was hard to decipher, but Mack was furious.
Mack then assigned me to bake five apple pies, which I burned when I turned on the broiler instead of the oven. Then he told me to make a burger for his wife, which ended when my belly flab flopped out of my shirt and onto the grill and began to fry, painfully.
At that point, Mack mercifully fired me. My fry cook career ended with a burned belly and a blistered ego.
Now that A&W Root Beer in Oakland is a taqueria, and consumer electronics service has gone the way of blacksmiths and bookstores into oblivion.
Happily, on Labor Day, both industries still thrive, here in that melancholy state of mind called Geezerville.
Gil Michaels still makes Papa Burgers at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gil-Michaels.
