02.19.2013 The Hudson County Department of Family Services—Division of Welfare. Hudson County Plaza 257 Cornelison Avenue Jersey City, New Jersey 07302-3113 It’s hard to tell who has it worse. The people that work here or the people that are coming here for help. Luckily I was here early enough so that I got a front row seat and could enjoy the whole scene in relative comfort but that was at 08:01 A.M. and by 11:18 A.M. it was no longer comfortable but was hot from all the new bodies that were filling up the Food Stamp Division room and emptying out into the lobby which technically is the third floor but to everyone there who doesn’t work there it’s the first floor off Academy Street over in Jersey City, New Jersey. I was no longer in the first row. Having to go up to the bullet proof glass and speak English, my native and only tongue to a high class bilingual Cuban woman who most likely migrated from Union City, New Jersey over to somewhere like Bergen or even Hoboken and probably is living in the first rate, subsidized housing for Hispanic people that really seems to piss off the Afro Americans more than us normal old White Non-Hispanic Americans but guaranteed she got her hair done in New York City on a social workers salary and not over here in the brick. Somehow I had to explain how I did not miss any of my phone interviews, how I talked to both Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Belle Famine and also explain how they both said that I would receive a package in the mail with all the forms I needed to fill out again the same forms that I have been filling out for three years and that the amazing state of New Jersey’s welfare department misplaced the package, never sent it in the mail and if I was 12 Blue the number & color of my ticket, that I was sure they didn’t mess up Blue 22’s either, the good natured disabled black man sitting next to me nor misplaced Blue 53’s who seemed to be the sweetest Polish lady you’d ever want to meet, they were probably here just to say hi and wondering where you were going at lunch time to have your nails done. If I only had a gun, then all the questions would be over, I could kill a bunch of these people, surrender, go to trial, go to jail, and have a nice bed, dental & health coverage, a chunk of time to work out, three squares a day, and I could probably even earn a little extra on the side doing tattoos for the local inhabitants including the guards too who actually pay more for the tats than my fellow inmates would. With my skills as a drawing major, and all the practice you get from drawing story boards I illustrated for Anheuser Busch, Maybelline, Michelob Dry, Lubriderm, Smirnoff Ice, Loreal, Tampax, Trident Chewing Gum, Oldsmobile, Kraft, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, Merrill Lynch, Kodak, Sears, The Chicago Tribune, Discover Card, Household Finance, Cessna, NutraSweet, Miller Lite, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Sony, Philip Morris, Marlboro, Volkswagon, Audi, hell, a piece of cake, naked chicks with guns, roses, guns and roses, swastikas, barb wire, I’d be swimming in dough. Hey it’s a plan, maybe not a very good one but it’s a plan. Off the cuff, that’s funny, cuff. I would know what tomorrow would bring, breakfast would be two pieces of rye toast, the kind my grandfather and I used to share in the mornings with his black coffee and with my glass of milk, two eggs over easy prepared to perfection by Billy “Steamboat” Bryant our beloved and talented flat top cook, a side of potatoes with some onions sprinkled with a touch of paprika a just shiny enough from the buttery surface of his morning workplace. Off to the gym for some light work on the chest and back, and go over the latest Pinan Kata we’ve been practicing, an Okinawa Shorin Ryu Karate style, I thinks it’s the third or fourth kata, anyhow, it gets the heart going and prepares you for the day. By that time almost 11:30 A.M. it was time for a shower, a shave and a light lunch of grilled chicken on a bed of lettuce, some black coffee and an ice cold apple juice. Back to the cell for a brush of the gums and a leisurely walk over to the dentist to have my brand new $23,475.00 full set of dental implants put in permanent like, a brand new smile and a brand new day all thanks to an unmarked 38 caliber steel blue revolver I nipped from Michael Barcone’s house the night we watched the Pittsburgh Steelers lose the Super Bowl XLV to the Green Bay Packers up there in West Kill, New York. You see they don’t check white people at the Hudson County Department of Welfare Office because it’s rare to see one there and that day February 19, 2013 even though I went through the metal detector I had stuck the gun inside one of my gloves, put it in the container with my keys, my cell phone, wallet and sunglasses and picked it up on the outside of the metal detector, right on top of the x-ray machine, the cop or security guy with the Garrett Super Wand hand held metal detector device never even passed it over me, I was white, it was rare, I was the nice unlucky white guy that had the misfortune of losing all his savings and retirement looking for a job for the last eight years and ended up here at the end of the world in Jersey City, in the front of the line first thing in the morning at The Hudson County Department of Family Services—Division of Welfare, on a dull grey morning, in a poorly lit building, in the shitty part of town on the backside of a career that wasn’t going anywhere and on the tail end of a story that was going someplace that no one wanted to hear about, until they heard that thirty eight special loud and crystal clear. No one listens unless you have a gun in your hand. Like I was saying it’s hard to say who’s got it worse here at the welfare division. The folks that are trying to help looks so worn out and beat up not from the early hour right now being about 08:07 A.M. but from the amount of people that show up in the room. The line outside the doors before 08:00 consisted of about sixty or so people and some of those were employees hanging out having a smoke, chatting with colleagues or catching up on the mobile with a family member about forgotten to do’s or adding to the list for the day. By the time 09:00 rolled around the amount of people had grown by at least four times and by the time 10:15 rolled around I’d say there were about four hundred people sitting in the room we were in, standing in the line that was leading out into the other room and filling up all the chairs in those rooms. To go through this day in and day out has got to takes it’s toll. The wrinkles below the eyes from listening people living below the poverty level. The dark circles around the eyes colored by all the dark stories about the dark places and dark times. Beat down bent over posture from having to watch all the people stoop so low they don’t know which way is up beat into them since they were so little they thought their mama worked at the Hudson County Department of Family Services—Division of Welfare only to get laughed at around the hood because they were too little, born too poor, to understand that waiting in line wasn’t working, wasn’t a job, wasn’t a career, and was the only thing that their mama’s knew how to do. Even though they were there everyday or what seemed liked every day, waking up early to be first in line, skipping breakfast, standing out in the cold, standing in the early morning heat of summer waiting, trying, hoping to make ends meet, hoping to start a future, praying for a little luck to come their way but seemed to miss them by miles. Miss them by cities, miss them by states and when all the jobs went to Mexico, China and wherever else outside of The United States miss them by whole countries, missing them by whole continents, passing them over and spreading the American Dream on distant shores, foreign lands anywhere but Jersey City, Newark or Union City in New Jersey. 02.16.2013—First pre-screening for Swissport Jobs at The Newark, New Jersey One Stop, 990 Broad Street, 07102. They were opened on a Saturday usually they are only open Monday through Friday, 08:30 am—04:30 pm. The first notice I received was via email and stated that there were five categories of jobs and you could earn between $12.00 & $18.00 an hour. Full time for Cargo warehouse Agent, Cargo Lead Agent, Cargo Office Agent, Office Lead Agent or Supervisor. I wrote the supervisor back Mr. Morris Murray at the Newark One Stop and asked if this email was was real because it seemed unbelievable to me to be gettingan email like this from out of the blue. He wrote back. “No, it is not for real. The flyer was the initial information given by subordinates. However, when we met with the Sr. VP, he stated the starting salary for all the positions was $9.00 with full time hours and full benefits. All the positions will start at $9.00 and go to $16.00 an hour after training.” (the training was at a rate of $9.00 per hour with benefits.) He continued, “Therefore, if you are still interested, we are pre-screening tomorrow Saturday in Newark at the One-Stop, 990 Broad Street, Newark 9 am, 10:30 am, and 1:00 pm.” I was there at 08:00 am just to try to be first in line. There were easily 30 people in line by the time they opened the doors at 09:00 am. They gave us the broad overview of Swissport as company and how you may be able to work your way up to a higher paying position and that the company was a place where a person could grow. There would be a drug test at anytime, there would be background checks none of this concerned me because I had previously worked for the 2010 United States Census and was finger printed twice and had passed an F.B.I. background check, I was working out all the time, hadn’t had a beer in months, didn’t smoke weed and other than being unemployed was feeling pretty positive about the direction my life was taking. I was the second person in line, I had my brand new Hudson County One Stop plastic I.D. card and was ushered to the pre screening room along with my line mates, first in line was a sweet, skinny black girl that was worried the pre screening would take too long and make her late for her regular some 10 minutes away down near The Ironbound, a mostly Portuguese neighborhood just south of Newark. 02.27.2013—Second screening for jobs with Swissport International Ltd. Wyndham Garden Hotel on South Route #1 Newark, New Jersey 07:30 am.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 01:49:03 +0000
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