Behind the Douglas fir curtain

The Last Gardening Job I Had Part 3

7/1/2014

By Stephen Jay Morris

            The grass is greener in Oregon, but the opportunities are bleak.  I was chasing a dream of solitude and tranquility, but all I ultimately got was disappointment and a very rude awakening.  Here’s another cliché: I leapt before I looked!  I prematurely retired to a life of solitude.  I now know that you can’t do that unless you are independently wealthy; only the rich can afford solitude.  Maybe in the 19th century, one could get away with it, but not in the 21st century.  After Pamela lost her job of 20 years in Gardena, we decided to pursue our long-planned goal of relocating to a state where we could enjoy a rural setting and a lower cost of living.

            While we were still living in San Pedro, California, we’d started to look for employment in the northwest region of Oregon.  I even flew up to Hillsboro, a city west of Portland, to interview for a gardening job.  At the time, I thought I had it in the bag.  They’d been so accommodating.  But, as it turned out, I never got the job; even after I interviewed for it four times!  It was the same old story: they seemed enthusiastic about me at first, and then two months later, I’d receive a form letter rejection notice.  I got the feeling that I was on some type of ‘No Hire’ list.  I think it would occur after the city completed a background check on me.

            One method of marginalizing someone is to accuse him or her of mental illness.  Officials used to do this all the time in the former Soviet Union.  Their mental institutions were full of dissidents.  I begin to feel that I was listed among such poor souls.  However, that would put me in the category of paranoid, and as I had no concrete evidence of being on any such list, I dismissed the theory.

            What was evidential was that many people of my generation were struggling over many months to find work. These have since been labeled “the long-term unemployed.”  Pamela was facing the same frustration.  We spent the majority of our days in Oregon applying for jobs, occasionally landing interviews, and ultimately getting rejected.  Prior to embarking upon a gardening career, I used to be included in the category of “unskilled labor.”  I soon learned that gardening was considered “skilled labor.”  In the private sector, small gardening businesses hired illegal aliens to save money by paying them under the table and avoiding taxes.  Civil Service was the only avenue where a gardener could get a decent wage.  That was my target employer.

            Well, to make a long story short, we ended up losing our new forest home and moved into a cheap little duplex in Milwaukie, Oregon.  We thought that being in an urban location would surely provide more job opportunities for both of us.  It was there I realized I was a city guy and not a country dude.

            I was desperate.  I applied for any job that I could do.  I applied for temporary jobs with temporary agencies.  Anything.  One agency was Labor Ready.  The deal there was that you’d show up at the agency early in the morning in the hope that you’d get an assignment.  I’d get there at 5:00 a.m., and wait and wait.  When 10:00 am came around, I’d go home.  I hated it!  The Oregon winters were a pain.  In the early, freezing morning, I had to scrape off an inch of ice from our Honda’s windshield.  In the waiting room were desperate looking characters, mostly transients, who’d travel state-to-state, looking for work.   Also there were older men in their 60’s, looking for any salary available.  I remember thinking that men like these should be retired and asleep in their beds.  It was not a friendly environment at all.  Men would stare into the abyss with the expressions you’d see at a funeral.  If someone did talk to you, it was because they wanted something, like a ride somewhere.

            One fine day, I got a call from another agency.  They’d gotten my name from a state roster provided online, of those seeking employment.  The agency’s name was Summit Staffing.  I’d never heard of them.  They knew of the unemployeds’ desperation, so they figured a client would show up at a moment’s notice.  The female voice on the phone sounded affable, like she was ready to breast-feed me.  Yeah, but it was all in the name of customer service.  One thing I learned over the years was never to show you are too anxious.  She told me she had a temporary position for the municipality of Oswego as a summer gardener.  Bingo!  She asked me if I could come in the office that day to fill out forms.  My lying reflex action went into overdrive.  “I’m sorry! What is your name again?  Taffy?  Yeah, I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.  But I can come in tomorrow.  Would that be all right?  What time should I come?  Ten would be fine.”  She gave me the agency’s address, which was located in some drive by town called Wilsonville.  I hung up the phone and told Pamela.   She was happy that I got a job.  All of a sudden, things would be the way they were supposed to be, and I would be the provider!  Little did Pamela and I know, however, that this revelation would be short lived.