Journelism

So, it turns out, I am good at one aspect of this job—training people.

Whenever someone applies to become a canvasser, they spend their first day observing one of the existing staffers. That day dictates whether or not they get hired. Their trainer pretty much gives the thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether the trainee gets invited back the next day.

Well, last week, I was assigned my very own observer for the first time. I’m the newest to canvassing in the office, so I hadn’t expected Hannah to entrust me with this important role. But hey, she makes plenty of decisions I don’t understand. So there I am, not even good at canvassing on my own—according to boss lady, at least—but I’m teaching a newbie how to do it.

Well, here’s the funny thing: I rock at training. All the confidence in my abilities that Hannah has robbed me of comes rushing back to me when I’m training. Suddenly I’m back to being really excited about the job. Somehow needing to be a good example makes me the best example: I have more energy when I’m out hitting doors, I know exactly what to say and how to say it when potential donors ask me questions, and I just develop a whole other persona—one that knows precisely how much encouragement to give, enthusiasm to ooze and advice to bestow.

It’s like… it’s like I’m acting. But it’s a role I’ve never seen the script for and yet I know all the lines. You know how they say, “Those who can’t do, teach.” I’m starting to think it’s true. Not that I believe I’m as bad at this job as my supervisor thinks, but I know I’m not great at it. But I am great at this.

OK, maybe I should clarify. My trainee who was just hired hasn’t had any time yet to prove if she’s going to be a great canvasser. So when I say I’m great at training, I’m not guaranteeing that my trainees will rock this job. What I’m saying is, I am good at making the job seem appealing to our potential employees; when I’m on my game, canvassing seems really fun and not that difficult and hanging out with the staff seems fun and… my trainees, after a day with me, hope to get hired. I consider that successful training.

That said, I sure hope my trainee becomes a solid canvasser. It would really reflect well on me, and I could use some good reflections.

I am trying. I am trying so very hard to keep at this job. But there are days when I come home less than stoked about life. And others when I am downright miserable with my current state of affairs.

There are many emotions I expected to experience when graduating college—happiness, excitement, trepidation, fear, sadness—but misery did not make the short list. If anything, I swore to myself that I would never, ever again work a job that made me hate my life (my college job had me pulling out my hair five days a week… for three and a half years). So I have been on the verge of issuing my two-weeks notice for a while now.

But this is “real life.” I can’t just quit jobs willy-nilly. I need to be rational in my decision-making. So, like the nerd-at-heart that I am, I sat down and made a list of all the positives and negatives for my current job.

And so, here it is!

The Fund for Public Interest Canvass Staff Cons/Pros

Cons

1. The commute: I drive approximately 75 miles per day, five days a week. I get an average of 35 miles to the gallon, with a 12-gallon gas tank, so that comes to…(Hey, my mental math is slow. I was an English major)…  about one tank a week. Not bad. But if gas costs an average of $2.70/gallon, and I get paid every other week, I’m using about 1/8 of my paycheck just driving to and from the place at which I earn my paycheck. I’d be willing to take a significant pay cut just to be within walking/biking distance from my job so I can save that money for ramen or toilet paper.
2. The hours: We work 1:45 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. The commute is 35 minutes, plus time to find parking. So I am out of the house from 1 o’clock to 10 o’clock. I don’t get to watch Jeopardy anymore. I haven’t cooked dinner in weeks. My time at home is spent sleeping. I don’t enjoy that.
3. The lack of logic: The Fund is located in Ann Arbor, MI, west of my home. Last week we canvassed in Birmingham, MI. This week we’re in Beverly Hills. Those cities are east of my home—and significantly nearer to my home than the office. Am I allowed to meet the rest of the canvassing staff on the east side? No. No, I’m not. I am required to drive west, just to carpool back east past my house to our canvass turf. Come shift’s end, we carpool back west again past my house, only so that I can hop back in my car and drive to my house! Stupid!
4. Even worse hours: With this new and ridiculous driving situation, I haven’t gotten home until 11 p.m. or later this past week. It is absurd that I’ve eaten dinner while watching Jon Stewart. Outrageous even.
5. Hannah: We got a new boss. She’s a tiny sprite of a gal with orange hair and a thirst for power. Her dictatorial ways have the veteran canvasser (see Pros) in the office against her, so I’m sure she won’t last five more minutes, let alone another month, but she is making my already annoying job impossibly intolerable: any confidence I once had in my abilities is gone as she questions my every word choice; she talks down to me, disrespects me as a person and then threatens to can me if I don’t get my average up, even though I’m bringing in just as many donations to the organization as she is. She is going to have a bloody coup on her hands.
6. The Cold: (Yes, I meant to capitalize “cold”: it is no longer a temperature; it is a spiteful, conscious entity working towards my destruction.) Traditionally, I love winter. I sing “Let It Snow” from September through April. That said, I am so sick of mittens and knit caps. I never want to wear long johns ever again. I hate traipsing through the cold, wet Michigan winter every day.

Pros

1. The exercise: All the walking I do in this job has my jeans fitting nice and loose. If I stick this out, I could be in bathing-suit shape by May.
2. Ann Arbor: What can I say? I may be a Spartan, but just because my rival school is located in Ann Arbor doesn’t mean I can’t like the city. The stores, eateries, cool arts-and-crafts-style houses—it makes my soul happy.
3. The donors: Who can say they meet a dozen new people every day with whom they share values and interests? I can. I love the encounters I have every day: donors who want to talk conspiratorially about treatment of the environment, toddlers who greet me at the door and present me with their toys, sixth-grade boys who throw snowballs at me as I trek down the street, little old ladies who offer me tea. Love it.
4. The dogs: Some people shy away from a large, barking dog, but I love the furry critters that bound at me when their owners open the door to talk to me. I miss owning pets, but in this job, it’s like I live in a menagerie.
5. Robert: The veteran canvasser of the office is my only ally, and what an ally he is. He looks out for me, telling me to stay home when the roads are bad and helping me to not feel guilty about taking a needed sick day. He doesn’t make me feel bad about myself, unlike the other Fund employees; on the contrary, he makes me feel good about myself on a daily basis. And he just makes the job… less than excruciating.
6. The pizza: Wednesday, there’s free pizza. Enough said.

Well, six to six. It’s a tie. But I still feel like the Cons are weighted more heavily. Still, I’m holding off on quitting until the decision is indisputably the right one.

Sigh. I guess I’m putting on my long johns and commuting tomorrow. Hope there are lots of pet owners on my turf.

Have I mentioned there is a quota in my new job?

Not only am I expected to knock on strangers’ doors and ask for money— as if that isn’t a tough-enough task—but I am also required to bring in a certain dollar amount of donations per night. If I don’t average that number over the course of a week, well, I’m in trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Poor. Because I could get fired if I don’t meet quota.

Last week, I did not average quota. Uh-oh. So now, my job hangs in the balance (I have to compensate for my failure this week by averaging above quota. Eek.), and suddenly, I’m not having so much fun anymore.

Now there’s pressure. Now my supervisor thinks I’m a failure. Now my self-esteem is sinking to the sub-zero level because if I’m not good at something, I count it as a serious deficit to my character. Now I actually feel like I’m doing work.

And now I’m thinking that I would like very much to just give up and let them fire me. Or maybe I could skip the passivity and simply quit.

I mean, why suffer? I shouldn’t subject myself to that which makes me unhappy. I found this job, I’ll find another one soon enough, right? There’s no honor in enduring torture.

Listen to me. I’m delusional.

Hundreds of thousands of people do jobs that they aren’t enamored with. And you know what? They feel blessed to have jobs! They are content to be able to pay the gas bill! I have joined the ranks of the working world. I need to buck up and deal.

I never thought I was the type to be a crybaby. I guess I was wrong.

Maybe I’m not so great at fundraising. Maybe I’m going to have to put in extra effort this week to bring in the bucks. Maybe it’s going to be more of a drag getting out of bed this week… and (hopefully?) next week. But hey, that’s life. That’s work. When my ideal job comes along, and I have companies just begging me to work for them, then I am permitted to throw in the towel at this canvassing thing. But until that time, I’m going to put on two pairs of socks, lace up my boots, and take the long hike through the suburbs of Michigan telling people all about the Sierra Club. And I will do it with a smile on my face.

Because having heat at my house is something to smile about.

When I finally got a job, I had hoped for various benefits: health coverage, maybe a 401(k). One perk that did not make the list was frostbite.

I was just hired by the Fund for the Public Interest on their canvassing staff. Now, canvassing is just a fancy word for fundraising. We literally go door to door on behalf of the not-for-profit groups we work with like the Sierra Club and the Human Rights Campaign looking for contributions. I would feel sort of shady, except I know these funds are going to a good cause, so I’m doing the job with a smile. I get a paycheck and the feeling that I’ve done something good for the world—win-win.

But there is one glaring downside: it is January in Michigan. Yesterday, even in the rare yellow pools of sunlight, it was a frigid 25 degrees Fahrenheit. And when the sun goes down and the wind picks up, well, the cold is downright unbearable. No matter how many pairs of socks I wear, I fear the loss of my pinkie toes to gangrene. My lined gloves do nothing to maintain the feeling in my fingertips, making it very difficult to wield a pen as I mark off houses on my clipboard. And worst of all, when someone comes to the door and I start my spiel, I find that I cannot say things like “environmental” or “grassroots” because my lips are too cold to form the actual words.

Somewhere, there are laws to prevent this type of employee abuse.

You may wonder why on earth someone would take a job like this. I found myself wondering just that last night when I realized that I had two more hours before my boss would be coming to pick me up. I had walked my assigned loop twice, visited every house with a discernible light on inside, and even made more than my quota of dollars for the Sierra Club. But I was in a neighborhood far from any public place. No warm cafés to retreat to now that my work was complete, no access to restrooms, nowhere to hide from the wind hissing in my ears.

Sitting on a bench by a frozen stream, while I put a second hat on my head, I honestly thought for a second that I might die. I was beyond any level of cold I had ever known, and the balmy salvation of my boss’s maroon Taurus would not roll up for an eternity. I didn’t want to walk anymore, didn’t want to breathe anymore. I was done. I would curl up in the snow and let it all end.

Or at the very least, quit.

Well, obviously, since I am typing this blog, I did not die. And I did not quit. I called my boyfriend to remind me that there are people in the world who are warm. And then I bucked up and started to walk again. Slowly, determinedly, I walked. I watched the minutes creep by on the lit face of my cell, and I walked. I slipped on an ice slick in someone’s poorly maintained driveway, then I picked myself back up again and walked some more.

It’s not an easy job, but it is a job. I have car payments to make and my share of the utilities at our house to pay. So I put on the warmest clothes I can find and I brave the winter weather.

This is Michigan, where the unemployment rate is out of this world and there is no end in sight for our streak of bad times. I am lucky just to have a job, even if it requires me to wear gear suited for the Arctic. Today, I will hit the streets again. I will brave the cold, knock on people’s doors for five hours, and pray that I find all 10 toes still intact when the day is done.

It’s a good thing I look cute in a parka.

I can’t decide which is a more painful process: writing a cover letter or interviewing. In each, I have to find a way to talk myself up without seeming full of myself, and that’s just an uncomfortable experience for me. I like to avoid such situations that make me internally squirm.

But I enjoy eating food. Acquiring food requires money. And acquiring money requires a job. And acquiring a job requires writing a boastful yet humble (ah, contradictions) cover letters and then interviewing in a way that says, “Hey, I’m better than those three other people in the waiting room… but I’m sure they’re really good, too. But remember, I’m better.”

So I suffer. I suffer through the whole process so that I can get a job and pay the bills and be able to afford groceries. I suffer now so that I don’t suffer and die later.

In the past couple of weeks I have applied to over a dozen jobs. All of them are the sorts of things that I’d have fun with for awhile, then learn to loathe, and then learn to accept as just a part of this “real life” thing that I’m slowly adjusting to. None of them are in my field. But that’s OK, because they’re just for now.

Or so that’s what I tell myself to keep calm.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am looking for temporary work right now, not a career. When I start to think about finding a career—or worse, start thinking that one of these temporary positions could unintentionally become my career—I panic. When I panic, one of two things happens: A) I sulk and cry quietly to myself for a few days, while my poor boyfriend worries, then eventually gets frustrated with me for sulking; or B) I tell him what’s wrong in a big, loud, crying freak-out that somehow leads me to attack him, then he gets frustrated with me for being crazy. Either way, bad things happen and we have stony silence for days to follow. All in all, panicking is bad.

Anyway, I’ve applied to all these jobs. I sit down and write a nice little letter about how detail-oriented and high-energy I am, and how I would make a great asset to their company. Inevitably, I go through a little epistemological crisis: Do I really believe the things I’m saying? Am I energetic, or am I saying that because it’s what they want to hear and I’ve already told 10 other potential employers that I am? And then I decide that, yes, I am energetic and, yes, I do believe everything I’m telling them. Then I hit send and say a little prayer.

I always, at this point, think about the other applicants. Naturally, they must all be saying the same things in their cover letters. And maybe more. Maybe they’re saying that not only are they energetic, but that they type 120 words per minute and speak three languages fluently and… well, you get the picture. I work myself up, convince myself that I will never get this or that job because I portray myself honestly and no one else will. I tell myself that I am a fool for thinking I can get a job fresh out of the dormitory. I doubt myself. I deflate as all self-esteem leaks out of me.

Then I slap myself across the face and snap out of it.

Not to sound like the mass media, but in this “economic climate,” the job market is a scary place. My new joke is: “Job hunting is dangerous; wear camouflage.” I don’t even know what I mean by that, but it sounds funny and comforts me.

The fact of the matter is there are thousands of people looking for jobs in Michigan right now. I’m not going to get an interview for every position for which I apply, and I won’t be picked for every position for which I interview. It’s no reason to start a pity-party. It’s bad enough that the unemployment rate is so high; we don’t need an epidemic of self-loathing, too.

I have walked into six interviews during the past two weeks. I wore my crisp business clothing, smiled warmly and shook hands with the interviewers firmly. I told them all about my goals, my past job experience and my personality. I did my best to brag about myself—even though doing so makes me want to clam up—and I meant everything I said. That’s a feat in and of itself, and I should be proud.

As I type, I am waiting by the phone for a call that may or may not be coming. I had a second interview for a position that I really want. As every minute ticks by, I begin to think with a sick feeling in my stomach that I didn’t get the job. Maybe I got the job but they just haven’t called, like how it took them days to call to tell me I got the second interview. Maybe I didn’t get the job and I will never hear from them again. Maybe they haven’t decided at all yet. Maybe.

It’s so easy at times like this to lose confidence. But I am positive and hard-working and, darn it, energetic. So job or no job, I’ve got to have faith in me, even if those employers don’t.

Besides, I’m prettier than those other applicants.

(Hey, if it makes me feel confident, I’ll tell myself anything.)