#OpentoWork

 With my job with the Missouri Conference concluding at the end of last year, this is my week being unemployed. I spent the last week working full-time, filling out applications. Before I get into that, I’d like to tell you about a few guys I’ve met out here.

When we first arrived in Tacoma, we soon met a co-worker of Ann’s… let’s just call him Ron. Ron was a young, charismatic guy, full of energy and positivity. He was running tree-give-away events, and doing so with professionalism and efficiency. He looked like he could just as easily have walked into a skyrise executive boardroom and run a meeting for some multi-national corporation. He seemed like exactly whom everyone would want to hire.

“So, what’s Ron’s background?” I asked Ann.

“I don’t know. He’s part-time,” she said.

“What?” I was kind of floored.

“Yeah, he’s only 20 hours a week. Doesn’t get benefits or anything,” she said.

I replied, “Well, not everyone has the same opportunities. Maybe he didn’t get to go to college. I’m sure he’ll do great at whatever he sets out to do.”

The next time I saw Ron, somehow the topic of school came up. I asked where he went to school, and he said Brown.

“You mean the Brown in Rhode Island?” I asked.

“Yes, that one,” he replied.

Editor’s note: Brown is an Ivy League University that costs $96,000 a year.

I’m thinking he must have gotten one of those liberal arts degrees that don’t translate into a job, so I asked him what his major was. He told me chemistry.

“You have a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Brown?” I clarified.

“No,” he replied. “A master’s degree.”

Not long after that we were in the bar in Elbe (the bar, as Elbe only has one). We got to talking to the guy sitting at the bar next to us. Come to find out, he is a journalist as well. He got his journalism degree from Columbia – not Mizzou, Columbia University in New York.

Editor’s note: Columbia is an Ivy League University that costs $94,000 a year.

I asked what he’s up to now, and he said he was working at a local writer’s retreat in nearby Mineral. He does this every year. He takes a week, and his wife, who is also a journalist, takes another week. The rest of the year he freelances. Most of his work comes from writing for college and university alumni publications.

“Well, I’ve got to head back to do the dishes,” he said as he got up to leave.

He wasn’t presenting at the writers’ retreat, he was working in the kitchen in exchange for room and board.

A bit later I was at a tree planting event and ended up working alongside an individual who was even more impressive than Ron. Closer to my age than young Ron, but very refined and polished. He looked like a model for LL Bean. Totally put together – you could tell just by looking at him. Closer to my age than young Ron. When he dug a hole and put a tree in it, you can bet he did it right. He seemed to know his way around tools and manual labor. I asked him about that, and he said he grew up working on his dad’s logging operation, but eventually left it and went to school (also Brown… it seems Ron had recruited him from an alumni group) and got his degree in computer engineering. Worked for Boeing for years. I asked him if he was still doing this.

“No, my job was outsourced overseas a while back. I haven’t worked since,” he said.

I think of these three guys when I throw my resume out in the ether and hope it lands somewhere. These are interesting times to be a job seeker.