Tuesday, March 24, 2009
San Francisco 3/24/09
As fun as it is to live in a city as pretty and vibrant as San Francisco, I need a goddamn job, and not because I'm bored. I need it because I'm fucking broke. I have never needed a job solely for money. Usually it's a combination of boredom and money that drives a job search, but this is the first time in my life I can say I'm honestly struggling simply to put something in the bank. It's a new feeling, and needless to say, not a pleasant one. Bad economy or not, it's not good for the ego. Meanwhile, on "Jeopardy!", a former high school classmate of mine has just won $100,000 in the Tournament of Champions. Even before her appearance in this tournament, she was "Jeopardy!"'s highest earning female contestant of all time, with $222,597 in winnings. She has her own page on Wikipedia. On top of that, she looks way better than she did in high school. When I knew her she was a soft-spoken flute player with a serious case of acne and frizzy, unkempt red hair. Now she's kind of a babe. It always makes me jealous when people make lots of money doing something that takes an hour and is probably enjoyable. We weren't good friends; since it's been ten years since we graduated, I'm starting to wonder what the chances of her recognizing my voice would be if I attempted to rob her at gunpoint.
The other day I walked to the market down the street from me. There was a bum sitting by the door begging for change. When I went in he asked if I could spare any and I said, Wait one second, when I come back out I'll have some for you. After purchasing a stick of grape fruit leather I dropped 35 cents in his cup and thought to myself, What a guy you are. You're pretty broke but you're giving this guy change and he's not even a very impressive hobo. He's not doing any tricks, he doesn't have a clever sign, you're just giving him money out of kindness. What a guy, that Dan Ehrlich, huh?? He looked up and thanked me. Hey buddy, don't worry about it, this is the kind of thing Dan Ehrlich does for people. I started to walk back to my apartment and then realized, shit, I meant to buy brussels sprouts, so I returned to the market. As I walked in, the bum again asked for change. Maybe thirty seconds had passed since I had dropped the change into his cup. I looked at him in disbelief and cried, "I just gave you some!" When I told my roommate this story later that night he called me an asshole. I looked at him in disbelief: "I'm the asshole? That goddamn bum should love me, I gave him change." Yes, my roommate agreed, but he's a bum. He's probably not all there, you know, mentally. "Yeah, I know, but it was literally thirty seconds later. Unless he's completely demented he should have remembered me." My roommate pointed out that I probably shouldn't take it personally. "Fuck him!" I yelled. "That asshole made more than I did today!"
It may occur to you that I should accept the fact that not everyone can make money doing very little, get over it, and try harder to find work. And you probably have a point. But when looking for work becomes your job, your day-to-day activity, you get pissed, you get anxious, you get a little down on yourself. When the highlight of your week is a job interview that eventually goes nowhere, when you are doing two interviews just to get a waitering job that two years ago you would have been overqualified for, when you are praying to a god you don't believe in to work in some crappy diner frequented by a bunch of hipsters whose job, it seems, is to look as much like that guy outside the market as possible because they think it's stylish, you have two choices: Let it get to you, or get angry with bums.
Last night the Final Jeopardy question was: It was over a century ago that America last had a president without having a vice-president. Name that president (I realize Jeopardy gives answers, not questions, so you can shut up now. I'm paraphrasing). Without missing a beat she answered Chester A. Arthur, promptly awarding herself 12,200 extra dollars. And she beamed, sort of shyly, or as shyly as anyone can when they know just how fucking awesome they really are. Well, smarty pants, answer me this: Where the fuck does someone get a job in this goddamn city?
