Cruel Cruel Missoula - Part I

We’re surrounded by lumber and dead bodies.

Beau and I have an apartment which sits in a sort of bowl surrounded by large hills and mountains, with I-90 up above us, two pieces of a cemetery on two sides of us, and various lumber yards and mills on the other sides. On a good day, you can walk outside and smell the pine wood being processed. And unfortunately, now when I smell that lumber, I just get pissed off, as you’ll soon discover…

Anyway, though Beau and I are happy to be in Missoula, we have been facing a harsh, HARSH realty since we got here – there are NO FUCKING JOBS! Here we are: him a certified teacher, now with savvy international experience, and me with my master’s degree and fairly impressive resume in the educational and non-profit fields. And yet, we are drinking from the dregs of what this “big” city has to offer.

The truth is, Missoula is only a big city to Montanans. To anyone you talk to who has come from out of state (which is a good many people), it’s a pretty small place. I find it to be a strange, somewhat cool, somewhat unappealing combination of small, hardcore industrial town and growing, quirky university town.

Since we moved here six weeks ago, Beau has only been able to secure seven substitute teaching jobs (one that doesn’t come up ‘til early March). This is some scary shit for us, struggling to pay for rent, credit card bills, and the dreaded student loans.

It doesn’t stop there. At this moment, I am registered with FOUR, count ‘em, uno, dos, tres, QUATRO temp agencies. How depressing is that! Temp agencies are always such an catch-22. You need them to get you some quick and dirty work when you come to a new city, but then you are tied to them like an indentured servant if you do get a good job. They provide you with weekly wages, but since your employer is paying them several dollars an hour on TOP of what they pay you, you get less money than you would if you were hired from them directly.

And sometimes, the whole thing can just be humiliating…

One of my first temp jobs was a clerical one at a lumber yard of sorts. More like a processing plant that receives wooden boards and then cuts them to order. Naturally, this wasn’t my dream job, but I needed work bad, and it seemed okay. I got there the first day and was greeted by a man with an ear-to-ear smile and a laid back attitude. At lunch, I told Beau he reminded me of Mr. Rogers. The woman who had given her two weeks notice, “Jill,” was not there to train me, which made it somewhat awkward, but Mr. Rogers did his best to train me to do a few things. He was actually a bit freaked out, since the office seemed to be going through a time of chaos. There was the woman who I was replacing, and the other woman in the office was moving into another position, and had just started training her replacement (whom they were not sure would stick around since the woman got the job by being demoted from another department). Mr. Rogers was obviously uneasy about the transitions.

Nevertheless, he began to train me. There were actually some duties I had never done before, but it wasn’t rocket science, and I picked it up fine. I continued working hard all day, and the woman I was to replace finally showed up (she had had some problems at home), and I sat with her for the rest of the day filling out paperwork and such. People there seemed nice, and I thought the job would do for awhile.

Jill and I chatted during the day and were astounded to find out we both came from the same city in Arizona. She told me how she was quitting to start school as a Speech Therapist, which I thought was very cool and told her so. I told her how Beau and I had been having such a tough time finding work and how I was happy to working there. I opened up to her a lot. I liked her and we really seemed to bond.

At the end of the day, Mr. Rogers came up to the both of us and solemnly asked Jill if he could speak to her alone for a bit and for me to wait. My heart stopped. The only thing I could think of was that Mr. Rogers would tell her I was doing such a good job that she didn’t have to fulfill her two weeks notice. He had been telling me all day how I’d been picking up the job quickly and competently. I felt sorry for her, since that probably would be an awkward conversation, but would probably release her as well.

I could see them in the other room, since there was a large window stretching across the wall. After about five minutes of my standing there, Mr. Rogers got up from the table, left the room, and came over to me, his face slightly twisted. Jill remained in the other room, motionless, her back to me. Suddenly, I had an ominous feeling.

Once again I got his broad smile, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Do you have your timesheet from the temp agency?” Aw hell, now I KNEW this was trouble. After a moment’s shocked hesitation, I told him no, since I thought I’d be working for awhile and he wouldn’t need to sign my timesheet until the end of the week.

And so then began his schpiel, and that’s all it was, a big schpiel of horseshit. He went on and on about how he knew Jill had been having second thoughts of quitting, and so that’s why he had wanted to take her aside and talk to her about it and see what she really wanted to do. And yes, it seems she DID want to stay (so much for wanting to be a speech therapist), and you know what that means, I was out on my ass. After ONE day! Mr. Rogers blabbed on, saying how I had done such a great job, and he kept crowing, “But J., you are at the TOP of the list, the TOP of the list!” as he explained that the office was still in flux and maybe just MAYBE I could be called back *wink nudge* to replace the recently-demoted woman if she chose to quit.

He had to be fucking kidding me.

I have had plenty of jobs in my life, and have always strongly believed in working hard and doing a good job. And I have never been fired. At that moment, I felt like I had just been fired for the first time.

I nodded, turned, and left, where Beau was waiting in the parking lot in the car. “Go, just go!” I said, and poor confused him put the car in reverse and drove off to our home, just on the other side of the cemetery.

I spent the next several hours cussing and cursing the name of Mr. Rogers and his whole big stupid lumber yard. Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, I felt humiliated. The worst part was, I would have to RETURN there the next day so he could sign my timesheet. There was no way I was going to walk away without being paid for the day.

And what was also so depressing, was that once again, I was back at square one – unemployed with no prospects. It just killed me.

The next day I got up, showered and styled myself into a state of professional hotness. Wearing my sharp black suit and high-heeled boots, I drove over to the lumber yard, and with timesheet in hand, I marched in. I immediately zeroed in on Mr. Rogers and headed straight for him like a heat-seeking missile. The other woman smiled sweetly and greeted me and I did the same. Jill barely whispered a “Hi” and studied her desk intently. Mr. Rogers, seeing me, boomed out an over-dramatic “HI J!” that shook the walls and just pissed me off further. I tried to give him a polite smile, but it felt more like a grimace, as I handed over my timesheet like I was handing him a summons. He quickly signed it, mumbling pleasantries, to which I didn’t reply. I snatched the timesheet back, turned, and walked out with as much dignity as I could pull off. Really, the whole thing just made me feel blech inside. I got back in the car and drove off; at least it was over and I would never have to see these people again.

But damn it, sometimes I still SMELL them.