Lately, there’s a lot of news about employment. Some reports claim that there are more jobs than ever and not enough people applying for them. I wonder if it’s not because we’re lazy or the pay isn’t good enough but rather, we’re just too busy doing more and more jobs for free.
Take me for instance: For most of my career, I’ve had one full-time job, five days a week. But over the past few years, I’ve been adding a lot more job titles to my resume. I‘ve been hired as a retail clerk, IT specialist, grocery clerk, stock clerk, furniture mover, fast food server and the new jobs keep coming. And get this: I haven’t been educated, trained, or experienced in any of those positions. In fact, I started right away without an interview, reference check, or any qualifications. Oh! And I don’t get paid either.
Here are a few examples: The other day, I was in a clothing store looking for a sweater in another size. The store was empty, and no one was in line at the cash, so I asked the idle clerk behind the counter if he could check other stores for my size. “I don’t do that!” he barked. “You can call around to all of the stores and ask them for it.” So I started that job when I arrived home.
With more self-checkouts everywhere, I’m a store clerk now too. It can be stressful sometimes when the display screens and bar codes don’t work, I can’t find any bags and/or I can’t find anyone to fix the problems. Also, if I can’t find items in the store, I’m there to help with that job too. It’s a great day if I can find a store clerk. And I won the lottery if I can find a clerk who’ll stand in one spot, lift their arm, and point me in the general direction of what I’m looking for. But often I just put my store-inventory-clerk-hat on to search the millions of items and dozens of aisles to find it myself.
And I was hired as a stock clerk at a massive furniture outlet recently. I’ve got to tell you, finding those numbered bins in the football field long aisles of stock can take a while. And I need a few biceps to lift those disassembled furnishings and stack them onto my cart. But I find if I keep doing the job, eventually my back doesn’t snap anymore, and I get the feeling back in my hands faster. I guess my body has to adjust when it’s manual labour like that.
