Putting The Red Light On This Opportunity
When the bank I worked at decided to reorganize and downsize, right before the credit crunch, I found myself without a job and very few job openings. Here in the Netherlands, you have to sign up with the unemployment agency to receive your allotted months of unemployment, and every month, you have to fill in a little sheet stating at least four jobs you have applied for.
Of course, anyone really wanting a job doesn’t stop at four applications per month. I soon had a binder with dozens and dozens but very little success. With so many young people straight out of high school and college who could be paid minimum wage, nobody was looking for someone in their forties they’d have to pay considerably more, especially not in the banking industry.
In addition to that application sheet, the agency would “request” your presence every now and then to go over your job hunting efforts. A request that always would — and still does — come with the admonishment that they would dock you for not showing up. So, dutifully, off you’d trot to be berated by some eager young bean counter for not looking hard enough.
My case “manager” was an overenthusiastic young man who clearly thought that finding a job was easy-peasy, despite the hundreds of job seekers that trudged through their halls every day. He had blithely told me on occasion that I should apply for a two-hour-per-day job that had a two-hour commute by train, one way.
I recently went to my final talk with him. He didn’t know it was our final talk; I finally had a second interview set up to discuss the terms for my soon-to-be new job. I saw this little flyer on his desk from a firm looking for drivers. He saw me look and said that if I had a driver’s license, I had to apply.
Feigning interest, I asked for more information than the flyer provided. It turned out they wanted drivers, preferably female as they were known to have fewer accidents, to unload new cars from ships. It was shiftwork, 8:00 am to 3:00 pm and 3:00 pm to midnight, somewhere way out in the western dockyards.
I asked how the late shift was supposed to get back into town and was that told the company would drop us off at the nearest stop for the night bus. I told him that was a good reason not to apply.
Case Manager: “Why not?”
Me: “Do you know where that bus stop is?”
Case Manager: “No, I don’t.”
Me: “I do. It’s right around the corner from a streetwalking zone, so I’m not going to stand around there in the middle of the night and wait for a night bus that comes only once an hour.”
Case Manager: “Why not?”
Me: “I’m not going to stand there with a group of other women, tired from an almost nine-hour shift, while there are cars with johns circling around looking for a sex worker to pick up.”
Case Manager: “I don’t see the problem; you’re at a bus stop.”
He literally did not see the problem!
Case Manager: “If you don’t apply, that could have consequences for your benefits.”
Luckily, four days later, I was able to inform the agency that my new job would soon start.