Because then I would have a job! While unemployed, I've really started to look forward to greeting the postal worker lady every day. She's tooling around in her little white van wearing industrial-strength gray shorts and bringing Milkbone treats to the vicious neighborhood dogs. She seems pretty happy. She's in a great neighborhood with shady trees, she can spy on old people, and every once in awhile she gets some exercise when there's a big package to be delivered.
Then I thought about a park ranger. You wear a dorky hat, walk around pointing out poison ivy, watch for forest fires, and do little pen and ink drawings in your notebook of native wildlife.
Or maybe the librarian in a rundown, inner-city library where no one even comes to check out books, just the occasional homeless person who reads the newspaper and uses the public bathroom. Sometimes both at once.
All these government jobs appeal to me because you basically can't get fired. They just shuffle you around or promote you to someplace far away. But it's breaking into the bureaucratic and labyrinthian government workforce that's difficult. You've basically got to be a veteran with a disability to even be looked at. I'm not making light of these people's situations, but I've filled out so many job applications that all end with the same questions: sex and nationality. As I sadly check "Caucasian" and "female," I kiss another fire-watching, thumb-twiddling, phone-it-in job goodbye...
