Getting A Job

Today is my father's birthday, and this is a topic that is near and dear to his heart--Employment.

We all want to increase tax revenue in order to buy down the deficit.  In order to pay taxes, you have to have a job.  Easier said than done.

It is just not that easy to get your first full time job.   You are almost always competing with people who have had a full time job.  When an employer is looking at prospective employees, someone who has a reference that you can talk to is valued over someone who doesn't.  A lot of jobs that do not require a college education are not necessarily looking for someone who has been to college.  Being smart is not necessarily better than someone who knows how to show up to work on time and who can follow directions.

I have been thinking about this recently--I met a remarkable woman on a plane who had come to the United States as a refugee from Burundi. 

She had a college education there, but she knew that would hold little water here.  She was prepared to work hard, and she and her sister had a lot of children to support--her son was 3 years old, and she had three young siblings who would be full time students.

She had a good attitude. She wasn't expecting a high flying job--she applied to be a maid in a local hotel. When she was interviewed she was asked a lot of questions about her previous experience as a maid, of which she had none, and she was ultimately told that she was not qualified for the job.  She told me this story 15 years after it had happened, but the shock she felt then was palpable today.  She ultimately had the experience that you would expect of a highly motivated, very bright employee--she got an entry level job at a factory, and both she and her sister quickly rose up the ladder there, first becoming shift supervisors and gradually rising from there.

She was a dream employee--except that she did not want to end her career there--but she trained many employees under her supervision about what an ideal employee was like, and as someone who has employees, that is a very good thing indeed.

It is very hard to start off at the bottom of the ladder, and all of us who have the opportunity to give someone a break should exercise it.