05 Apr Standing in our Truth
Having lived into my forties (44 and-a-half next month), I can humbly say that I am one of the worst employees an organization can hire. Thankfully, for all the Fortune 500 companies out there, I’m blissfully content and blessed being a self-proclaimed co-CEO of the Needelman Household, blogging, and volunteering.
The line wrapped around the block, winding from the entrance of the building, which was too far to see from my vantage point, and encompassed a few city blocks. By the time I stood in line, holding my “resume”, teacher recommendation letters, report card from graduation, and list of awards received, I was one of hundreds applying for less than two dozen positions at a company which supplied electricity to most of our region. Let’s call them Edison’s Electricity.
My resume consisted of working at the Montgomery Ward key and engraving kiosk where I spent most of my hours working on homework and enjoying the quiet (since peace rarely visited our family home), and very little time selling money clips, bracelets, and Christmas tree ornaments.
“You know this is our busiest season!” Cheryl said. Cheryl was my boss, a kind woman in her forties, who loved our local snow season and at the slight sign of flurries would hurry up the hill.
“Samita, you are so smart, but not cut out for sales,” she went on one day. “You don’t want to force anybody to buy anything they didn’t already come out here looking to purchase.”
She was right. If someone wanted a chintzy item and have me engrave it they would have to bring themselves to asking for it.
Not on the resume was the very brief stint at a national bookstore chain where stocking books and customer service was the criteria. As a voracious reader, there was less stocking on my end and more getting engrossed in a book, slouching against a corner wall, letting the world fall away, and drifting off to another world. Less than two weeks into my job, before my official nametag could arrive from corporate, I was relieved of my duties. You don’t hire alcoholics at liquor stores nor book nerds, like myself, at bookstores.
“…there was no family, trust fund, college fairy godmother, or savior who was going to assist me in getting the greenbacks for my education.”
When Edison’s Electricity sent flyers to the local high schools for job positions in their customer service center, I responded. Having earned a quarter off from college after taking the Advanced Placement tests and passing with college credits, I knew I had one quarter working full time, and at the most two – working only on weekends – to make enough money to pay for the rest of my years at the university. It was a gamble but there was no family, trust fund, college fairy godmother, or savior who was going to assist me in getting the greenbacks for my education. There was me.
“You know when you start making money, you’re not going to want to go back to school,” my friends warned. “You’ll wanna just keep getting paid!”
Most of my friends have known me over three decades, but they haven’t had direct contact with the fire that burns in me – hot, bright, and determined – when I set my mind to something. So, I let them talk.
“Girrrrllll,” Sandy whispered when she got in line with me. “There are close to a thousand people here!”
“Yeah,” I said.
“They are applying for the same job as us,” she kept going.
“Right,” AP classes or not, you have to speak what’s on your mind because I’m not so good inferring when I get laser focused.
“Samita, there are people with MBA’s in line. We just graduated high school,” she said. “We have no chance. Let’s go to lunch.”
“You go Sandy,” I replied. “I’m giving it a shot.”
What did I have to lose? I would go home and hang out with Sandy, but I could do that some other time. This opportunity – this moment – might never come around again. And there was a possibility that this would lead to three months of steady work, paying an insane amount of money for an 18 year old, which she would pocket away for the remainder of her years at the University of California, Riverside.
The line moved at a snail’s pace, during which time I interacted with the men and women around me. Many people were out of work in the early 90’s due to the “minor recession”. Their qualifications were vast and impressive: college educated, life experience, former vice presidents of companies, the movers and shakers of the world, and me – a recent high school graduate who happened to believe in her self-worth and was honest as the day is long.
From the initial interview to the tests to the final hire, the hiring process took three weeks to a month, during which time I never waivered from the truth, “I am needing this position to put myself through college and become an educator. My end goal is to become a teacher.” Not once did I lead my hires to believe that I wanted to stay long-term in their company. If they were going to invest time and money in me, I needed to be truthful to them, so they knew their investment was temporary.
“You got the job!” Sandy exclaimed. “I didn’t think we had a chance. That’s why I left.”
Out of over a thousand applicants, interviews, tests, and assessments, I was one of 18 picked to become new hires at the call center. There was still another month of 40 hours a week training that featured exams every step of the way, which a few in our grouping did not pass. After the month of training which consisted of over a hundred hours in the classroom, our group finally worked our first full weekend at the center. It was our version of graduation.
Calls came into my portal, “I’m moving so I need my electricity turned off…I need my electricity turned on…I can’t pay my bill…Why did you shut off my power?” And on and on and on. The weekends were filled with calls, strangers whose personal information I gleaned, “I’m getting a divorce…My mother just passed away…I lost my job…How long until you shut off my power?”
I was less interested in the idea of supplying electricity than the human beings impacted on the other end of the line.
“This is a business,” Sheila, my weekend boss, said. “Yes, we have empathy, but the bottom line is the dollar.”
Yeah…that’s not me. So, I became that employee: listening to the caller’s problems, validating their emotions, and staying on a call longer than needed. I was written up.
“Samita, you’re so smart,” there was a “but” coming (there always was), “but you’re not following the company’s plan. We need to give people a chance to pay their bill, but at some point the power has to go off if they do not pay – no matter the hardship.”
“I won’t be with a company or an institution where Wall Street has more power than State Street.”
Yeah…that’s not me. I could not – would not – be the straw that made another human being snap. I won’t be with a company or an institution where Wall Street has more power than State Street.
“Don’t you want to work here?” my boss asked during my third write-up in two months at the call center.
“No, I don’t,” I honestly replied. “This isn’t who I am. I want to help people, connect with people, serve people, but not like this.”
I signed on the dotted line relieving me of my duties.
“We will miss you,” she said hugging me. “You bring joy and light to the workplace,” she squeezed me harder. “Good luck with college.”
I found a home (and my future husband) at the Highlander.
The following quarter, with enough money in the bank to pay the remainder of my tuition, but not enough for books, parking, or food, I walked in the college newspaper office looking for a part-time position, where the hustle and bustle of putting a paper to press was underway, where facts were being checked and re-checked, where kids my age – determined to get to the truth – congregated amongst stacks of papers, discarded take-out, backpacks, and computers. This felt right. Yeah…this is me!
As I sat (more like sunk) on the beat up couch, the door to the office opened and another college student floated in. (While most of us walked, he inline skated). With his back still to me and a fro of curly hair, he glided towards the mailboxes.
“Damon, come and meet our newest reporter,” Dave, the News Editor, called out.
On looks alone, Dave was meant to be a journalist: glasses constantly slipping down the bridge of his nose, suspenders holding up slacks and a button up shirt, brown Fedora hanging in his office, always with a notepad and pen in hand, and the air of searching for the next big story.
I stood up, “Hi. I’m Samita,” I put my hand out. Inline skater shook it. He had kind eyes.
“I’m Damon. Welcome to the Highlander,” he said. And to the rest of your life, said the Universe.
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