Snelling & Snelling

Old Folks thought he could get an entry-level white-collar job in Winston-Salem, if he looked hard enough.

He searched the classified ads in the newspaper, he went to the state employment service.

Nixon was in, and there was a recession on.

Old Folks even went to Snelling & Snelling, who charged a fee to find you a job.

The man at Snelling & Snelling told Old Folks, "Most employers feel a degree in anthropology is not immediately convertible to profitability."

What is immediately convertible to profitability? A degree in business, where you learn to say things like, "Most employers feel a degree in anthropology is not immediately convertible to profitability."

I majored in business, and all I could get was a job that had me say, "Most employers feel a degree in anthropology is not immediately convertible to profitability."

But at the interview--even though the employee is paying the fee, Snelling & Snelling is on the employer's side--Old Folks realized that, to get a job he would have to revise his employment history. He wasn't telling employers the story they wanted to hear.

If you told the truth, you penalized yourself.

You gave your enemies a sword.

Would Old Folks lie to get a job?

What would he do when they found out the truth? He would be revealed as a liar.

He'd almost rather go without a job than lie to get one. Than live a lie, in constant fear of being found out. Exposed as a cheat, a sneak-thief, a pilferer.

This put Old Folks in a tight spot.

What could he say when someone asked him why he dropped out of the PhD program in anthropology?

Should he say, "They wanted me to eat shit and sing the company fight song." "They wanted me to fuck over students."

If he did say that, what would they say? "You're just what we're looking for. We'd rather have a man who will tell us the truth than a man who will eat shit and sing the company fight song. Who will fuck over students for personal gain."

Would they say, "You were right to drop out. What would you have done if you had stayed and gotten the degree? Treat students the way the faculty at Tulane treated you? Use students as pawns in sad little turf wars with other assistant professors? Live a lie?"

And he began to see that getting a publisher, and having a career as a writer, was like getting a job, a job as a college teacher. Unless you were Maya Angelou, you had to have an earned doctorate, to be a professor. Greeting card sentiments wouldn't cut it.

Publishers weren't looking for a writer who taught himself, who was educated in the College of Hard Knocks. He might tell the truth about them, he might be a whistleblower about the publishing industry. He might write an Inside Baseball or a Kitchen Confidential about book publishing.

Old Folks was doomed.

"Cigarette in the morning, cold coffee at noon, bourbon at quittin' time, I'm digging my tomb."

As James Reams sings, in "Coal Dust in My Soul."

The only life he knows is old coal-town shacks.

The feldspar mine, you don't get black lung, you get white lung.

Silicosis.

One day Old Folks laid out of work and drove over to an adjoining county to apply for a job he was on the state register for, a college-degree job. Alcoholism counselor.

He didn't get the job, but that's another story.

The next day, his bossman asked him where he'd been the day before, and he said, "Out looking for a better job."

His bossman said, "Well, you'd better go look for one today, too. I don't have any work for you today."

What kind of a story could Old Folks write if he had said, "I stayed home sick," or, "The dog ate my homework."

Troubled Times. James Reams sings about foreclosures, repossessions.

One time Old Folks was in a support group for unemployed or underemployed professionals and he said he was about to lose his house to the bank.

The next man said he had lost his house, had lost his wife, was living in his car, and was about to lose his car to the finance company.

Henry Miller says, "The times are always bad."

There's always war, scoundrels, unfairness. Recessions, coal mines, a minister telling you that while, yes, the job description technically specifies any social science degree, in practice they like to have a man with a degree in divinity, as alcoholism is a moral failing, which you can only cure by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Get used to it. Deal with it.

Old Folks was learning to deal with bad times. Troubled times.