I got the Job. Also...where I was.

I got a job at Ocean State Job Lot. Save your well wishes until I actually survive longer than three months there.

Where I Was

There are two wishes I would take back in a heartbeat if I could. One of them is the wish that I could have a "I remember where I was" moment. To this day there are very few events in my life that still feel like claws gouging at my heart when I remember them. 9/11 is one of those days.
 When I woke up that Tuesday morning, I was in my dorm room at Lyndon State College and I didn't have a class until six-thirty. So I decided to get some laundry done while I worked on a journal entry for English class. 
In the morning I like to listen to music while I get ready so I had the radio on to the local station. As I threw my laundry into the bag the DJ read of the news articles for the day.

“And in New York, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center…”

It’s very important for me to explain this. The way the DJ read it was very fast pace and nonchalant. It certainly struck me as out of the ordinary, but as neutral as his voice was I figured it was a small plane that maybe lost an engine or had a stick malfunction. I knew there’d be something on TV because that sort of thing just doesn’t happen every day and the radio, for all it’s entertainment value, is basically background noise to keep the room from being too quiet.

I took my laundry to the basement and threw it in the machine. Then I brought my backpack upstairs into the lounge and that’s when something very odd struck me.

Two of the RA’s were milling around the doorway into the lounge. Inside there were a ton of students sitting around the room, glued to the TV. And on the television was the South Tower, smoke billowing from a very large, gaping hole in the side.

“What the hell?” I wondered out loud.
It didn’t take long to find out what was going on. A jetliner had crashed into the north tower.
Wow, I thought. That’s what the DJ was talking about.
I sat there writing in the notebook that served as my “journal” for class.
A plane has just hit the World Trade Center. I don’t know if it was an accident or not. They aren’t sure yet but everyone is frantic.
About fifteen minutes of watching the screen later I had to go downstairs and switch my laundry from the washer to the dryer. In the space of that time the second plane struck the second tower.
Now a second plane has struck, I wrote in the journal entry. All I want to know right now is what the hell is going on?

And I sat there, glued to the screen, watching as people leapt from the towers and wincing as the camera showed their descent into the ground below. In the space of time it took me to do my laundry the towers had been struck and they crumbled to the ground.

That day the news blared from radios and television sets all over the campus. I watched as they replayed the footage of the plane striking the North Tower fifteen times. One of those times the audio was so clear I could hear the impact of the plane into the tower. It’s a sound I will never be able to get from my mind.

The first thing I felt was terror. Because I can’t stop thinking about things, I had to imagine what it was like for the people trapped at the top of the tower, falling all that way, their hearts pounding as they cried out in terror. I felt sadness that I would never get to see the New York skyline from the observation deck.

Worse of all I thought, oh great. My wish is granted.


I now have a moment that I can tell my nephew and nieces, “When that happened I was…”.

Apparently I Wasn't Following The Rules...

Everyone in the Lifebridge shelter has a chore. For the last two months, my chore was the refridgerator. I was to go through everything in there and get rid of what didn't belong there. The reasons for this are simple.

1: Anyone who has had roommates knows that you need to share the space.  

2: Sometimes people forget things like fruit and other perishable items that tend to take on a life of their own if you don't get rid of them after a while.

3: You can see by the video clip that shelter policy is quite clear. Any item that does not have a proper name or date is thrown out. Anything that is left in the refridgerator over seven days is thrown out. This policy is posted very clearly on the refridgerator for anyone to see it.



So, recently there was an incident. On one such day, I was going through the refridgerator and there were a lot of bags in there that were way past the required time. Sometimes I will change the date myself, so that this person will not have to lose their groceries, but this is only in the case that I can see what's in the bag and that I can see for myself that it is not perishable.

The bottomline is, as the person responsible for the chore, it's my call and it's my ass on the line if I don't occasionally throw things out. Mainly for the reasons above.

Please note that this refridgerator is not in anyone's home. It is a courtesy provided by the Lifebridge staff. It's there so that people who get food stamps or have a little bit of income can store the occasional cold beverage, or a few things to get them through the week on days when they might miss a scheduled shelter meal.

And it's not an industrial sized refridgerator either. It's a standard home appliance that only has so much room. And when you're living with twenty or so people who need to use the same space, you can see how it's a little bit selfish and arrogant to fill each shelf up with five or six bags of your own food and drinks.

So some things got thrown out. Now, most of the staff have been supportive of my decision. I also go the extra mile and really scrub out the fridge, because some of the flimisier containers tend to break open and things get spilled. Any chef can tell you that a food spills can lead to all sorts of health hazards. And honestly, when I'm not the one doing this particular chore, the refridgerator never gets a thorough cleaning.

So because of the effort I put into it, the staff generally had no problem with it.

That is until a staff member, whom I shall refer to as Christopher was working a couple days ago.

As stated, I threw some things out. People found out quickly and threw a fit. These are the people who pretty much hang out at the shelter all day and therefore have absolutely no reason not to check the dates on their grocery bags. They have time to sit there and watch movies all day, but they can't get up off their ass and write a simple date on a piece of paper, staple it to their bag and see that it doesn't get tossed? Right.

Again, ordinarily I have the support of certain staff members when I throw things out. But not when Christopher is in charge.

"You got to follow the rules, Nate," he said. "You don't throw other people's food out."

To which I calmly replied, "But the rules very clearly state that if it's not properly dated and labeled it needs to be thrown out."

At this point Christopher exploded. Screaming at me in front of everyone and growing steadily more abusive as his voice rose. Let me put it this way, if I were to ever speak to a police office the way this guy, a professional and a paid staff member at this homeless shelter, spoke to me, I'd be arrested.

The situation grew even worse, as shelter residents followed Christopher's example and made their hostility know to me.

Naturally, by the time the director of the shelter found out, this whole situation got twisted around so that somehow this was all my fault. That I had no right to throw anything out, inspite of the rules which you can read right there in the video clip.

So there you go, readers. Once again, Lifebridge, an organization devoted to aiding the homeless teachers scores a win.

If You Read This...

I was recently screamed at by a shelter staff member, for following shelter policies in regards to certain items in the refridgerator. I am not exaggerating, I was literally screamed at. If you do not believe a shelter has the right to act this way towards it's residents, then copy and paste the letter below into an e-mail and send it out to every Letters to the Editor section of your local paper.

In this rough economic climate, it’s only natural to expect that people will suffer a bit of hard luck. As much as we would like to pretend otherwise, the homeless exist. That means there is a need for places and services to assist those people, including, but not limited to shelters.

The question a lot of people in Salem, Massachusetts have no doubt been asking is just what is the Lifebridge Shelter doing to improve this situation in our town?

When you go into the living area of Lifebridge, the first thing you are likely to notice is the people who are just sitting around, reading, watching TV, or just staring off into space. These aren’t just people who have jobs and are simply taking it easy. The majority of them are people who are there every single day, all day, unless otherwise asked to leave. Half of them will only leave of their own volition to smoke, or to run down to the store to buy cigarettes and junk food. Remember this.

There is no doubt that some of these residents are mentally ill. There are also those who have limited mobility, or disabilities that otherwise make it difficult to leave the building. Once again, the majority of the people you will meet here have no greater disability than their own overinflated sense of entitlement.

Failure or refusal on behalf of staff members to enforce certain policies fuels this entitlement. People who would lose their beds or other services in a much stricter environment mistake this laxness for the norm.

Intoxicated residents who are banned by one staff member are given the run of the place by another. The lives of residents who need oxygen to breathe at night are placed in danger as residents prop the exit to the sleeping area open, allowing cigarette smoke to blow in. Remember this as well, it will be important later.

To speak to some of the residents, you might be lead to believe that you were in the Hawthorne Hotel rather than a homeless shelter. But then again, hotels have rules and policies that are better enforced. And those people actually pay to spend the night there.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the one percent of shelter residents who do take advantage of the services and try to improve their situations. If you see them at the shelter at all they are likely eating, sleeping, or heaven forbid taking it easy for a little bit. But they are awake and out the door early in the morning. If they do have jobs, they are faithful to their schedules and working hard to get a place to live. If they are unemployed then they are pounding the pavement in search of work.

Ironically, these are the people who suffer the most. Instead of assistance, they are given excuses. Appointments are made with their caseworkers, only to be canceled or forgotten without notice. Miscommunications between staff lead to misunderstandings that can cause these people to miss a meal, or to wind up being needlessly penalized.

Probably the worst offense of all is when a staff member who cannot properly manage their stress takes it out on a resident. This creates a hostile environment as that person’s inner circle of residents now believes that they can mistreat the victim. This is further reinforced when that staff member refuses to apologize, thus ensuring that a supposedly safe environment grows potentially dangerous.

Take a moment to think about that. As mentioned, there are mentally ill people living in this shelter. Some of these people would not be credible witnesses in a court case and very likely, if one of them were to tell you what someone did to them, you would likely dismiss them. But try to imagine a relative of yours.

Maybe someone with a similar mental illness or an elderly relative with Alzheimer’s disease, who for whatever reason has been placed in a home or other sheltered environment. How would you feel, knowing that a nurse or an orderly took out their frustrations on that loved one? Where would you draw the line? How would you feel if you were that person and you felt threatened and intimidated by people who were supposed to be there to help you?

What does this have to do with you, the citizen of Salem, Massachusetts or any other town with a similar situation to deal with? Well, at one point or another you’ve probably been asked to donate to one of these shelters.

You might have seen a booth at a fair, or attended a benefit dinner to support a homeless shelter. Or, perhaps you received a pamphlet from a place like Lifebridge, full of color photos of the staff, residents, and campus. In that pamphlet is an envelope where you would put a check or money order in one of the amounts requested.

The question you need to ask yourself is after reading this letter, do you honestly believe that this is a place you would want to donate your money? Does this sound like a place where your hard earned dollars would go towards caring for the mentally ill or for helping that once percent who just need that extra boost. Or does it sound more like you’re funding a twenty-four hour college fraternity party? Read on.

A number of the aforementioned residents, who suffer from those disabilities and limited mobility, will receive a disability check. Half of that money will go towards cigarettes. Similarly, their food stamps will pay for junk food while they enjoy full meals provided by donations from well meaning businesses and church groups. To add further insult to injury, the oxygen tanks, which many of these smokers use believe it or not, were paid for by health insurance that was provided by the state.

So in a sense, you, the tax payer have all ready paid a substantial amount for these people to just sit around, smoking, eating and reading. Do you really need to donate more money for them to do the exact same thing?

Please feel free to contact me with any further questions you have and please read my blog, The Morlock’s Voice.

More questions about Job Corps

This next article responded to questions that my readers had about Job Corps. Once again, please show your support for this blog and my goal of starting a newsletter by donating through paypal at thestreetreader@hotmail.com

These are questions that were asked in the comments section of the following two Hubs, including one question that was requested of me, which I responded to. Click the links for more information and when you're done reading my responses, check out the Amazon.com hubs for some handy items to take with you should you decide to go to Job Corps.

Note: All of the “questions” are summarized as opposed to copying and pasting the entire comment.

Bear wrote many questions within a question so I will break it down.

I am leaving for the Edison Job Corps in New Jersey and I was wondering if you are allowed to bring your own car.

If you are living on campus then odds are you will not be allowed to have your own personal vehicle there. Parking spaces at most centers are limited and will be reserved for staff and visitors, not to mention the question of would happen if your car were vandalized or stolen.

Are you allowed to leave campus in an emergency?

The term “emergency” is a very loaded concept on a Job Corps campus. A friend of mine once had to leave the campus of Northland's in Vergennes, Vermont because his own mother passed away and he needed to be at her funeral. They needed all kinds of confirmation from various people before he was “allowed” to leave, which was ridiculous since he was an adult and not there on a court case.

Ideally I would say that yes, you are allowed to leave the campus for any amount of time you need, so long as you give them plenty of notice and aren't on any kind of campus restrictions. But your emergency is going to have to be very specific and don't be surprised if they ask you to provide a corpse as proof.

When do you begin to get your Bi-Weekly Stipend?

You start getting that right away. If you started during a pay week you probably won't get an actual stipend until the very next payday. But if it's your first time in Job Corps you will get a 25 dollar bonus at your orientation. Note: You only get the orientation bonus once. You will not get it if you transfer to another center.

Clothing Allowance

This is basically how the clothing allowance and the clothing run itself works. Lets say your first day is April 15^th, (The day the Titanic sank coincidentally). You are placed on a schedule along with every other student that joins with you. It could be as soon as two months and it can be as long as six before your turn comes along. This is because each center receives a specific amount of money for each student at a given time and they need to plan the shopping trips accordingly. The same goes for every subsequent clothing run your scheduled for.

Depending on what center you live at and whether or not the store you're shopping for clothes at has any standing beef with said center, you will be taken on a van, with the other students who were in line to receive new clothes and six staff members who will act as chaperone's to make sure you buy the appropriate clothes. At Northland we went to Wal*Mart, until something came up that I don't fully understand and from that point on they started going to K-mart. When I went to the Loring Center in Limestone, ME, we went to a privately owned local shop in Presque Isle, which was actually very nice.

You're typically allowed to buy two packages of underpants, two packages of socks, or some variation thereof. But the clothes you buy will depend entirely on your trade.

For the Business Technologies trade, for example, I was required to get khakis or slacks, a pair of shoes that would be appropriate for the workplace (I refused to wear loafers, but regular black shoes were fine) and button down shirts. But you are not actually given the money. The staff who are with you will have the voucher in hand and they conduct the transaction.

Depending on how tight the schedule is, you are usually given time to do shopping with your own money. So if you know you'll be going on a clothing run this is a good chance to stock up on some of the items I will include later in this article.

Do they Give Driving lessons?

Yes. They will even pay for you to get your driving test. So that is one potential upside of going to Job Corps.

Dee Writes: I am a sophomore in high school and my grades are low. Do you think Job Corps is a good idea to get my Diploma/GED or should I stay in HS?

Dee, I first want to let you know that I feel for you. I have had responses from parents of kids who are having difficulty in high school and they themselves are wondering if it wouldn't be such a bad idea to send their kids of to Job Corps.

The truth is it's up to you and as a minor, it's up to your parents. If they support you in this decision and it is what you feel is right for you then that is what you need to do.

High School is rough, especially these days. Now if your difficulties are because of a learning disability, one thing I can honestly say is that the teachers at the Job Corps I went to are not notoriously helpful to people with those kinds of difficulties. Some can be very arrogant and very demeaning and yet there are a few gems.

I honestly can't tell you what to expect from every single center but I can tell you that Job Corps is not an easy alternative to what you're going through right now. In fact it tends to be worse, because at school you can go home at the end of the day. At Job Corps, if you're a residential student you go back to your dorm and the drama of the school day just follows you and can get worse.

So if it's just grades and you're just a sophomore, I would see if you can get any extra help at all from a tutor, your teachers, or anyone. Your guidance counselor might even know of alternatives to Job Corps that would better suit your situation.

It's up to you and I hope you make the right decision for yourself.

Do they allow Ipods and Cellphones during free time?

Every center has it's rules about cellphones and things like Ipods, MP3 Players and now a days I bet they even have rules about wireless notebooks and Internet phones. So as far as the rules for each center goes that's a tuffy even if you did call them up and ask: because ninety-nine percent of the time the staff can't keep track of all the rule changes.

The policy of Northlands Job Corps was simple. Cellphones and Ipods needed to be left in your dorms during class or they could be confiscated. That policy was very loosely enforced so you'll have to decide if it's worth the risk to be break it at your center.

At the Loring Center you had to give your cellphone to the guy in charge of security until you went to some kind of course. I didn't have a cellphone at the time so it wasn't an issue. After you take the course then presumably you can have your cellphone.

How Big Are the Rooms?

Again, this varies from center to center.

At the Northlands Center you could be in a room with up to eight other roommates or you could just have the one. Single rooms were a privilege that you had to work hard to earn. Yes, I did earn my way into a really nicely sized single room by the time I left there, so it is possible. The rooms may be differently sized depending on what dorm you're in but for the most part you will have adequate leg room.

The Loring Center was an old Air force Base so all of the rooms were two person rooms and you shared a bathroom with the two guys in the next room. I actually liked the living accommodations at Loring much better because there are really only three people to blame if your bathroom gets trashed.

The Truth of Job Corps

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What Job Corps is: A government backed training program that can teach you a trade that may lead to a successful career. They give you a clothing allowance, which I found came in handy quite nicely and if you don't have your high school diploma they will help you achieve your GED.

At the Loring Job Corps Center in Limestone, Maine you can even get your official diploma.

You do get a bi-weekly stipend that increases from the minimum fifteen dollars to the maximum fifty dollars. Once you have completed your trade and earned your GED (if it applies) you get 1200 dollars for completing.

What Job Corps isn't: An alternative to college. This is a huge mistake that many people make and they end up paying for it with their time and their sanity. So let me clarify this point: No matter what the staff members or whatever students who have been brainwashed by the staff members tell you: Job Corps is not like college at all.

The first thing to remember is that as a new student of Job Corps, you are at the bottom of the pecking order. You are not an equal to anyone so check your ego and your personality at the door.

Residential Advisers, Teachers and students in "leadership positions" will treat all new students like they are beneath them. So find out whose good side you need to get on fast and the experience will go by more smoothly.

There are no innocent people, either. If someone else has done something that violates the campus rules, or in some other way upsets or annoys a staff member, everyone is punished.

Depending on what center you go to, the people in the nearby town or wherever you go for clothing and food runs will automatically expect you to steal from them. So just remember that in Job Corps, it is death by association, automatically. It will be up to you to raise yourself above that standard.

Now is this to say that you should avoid Job Corps all together? Absolutely not. By all means, if this is what you want to do, go for it. But here are some suggestions to make the experience go by a lot better.

Ask around. And I don't mean asking out reach counselors, who will tell you anything to get you into a particular center. E-mail students from your particular center and ask about what the campus is like.

The live journal website has groups of Job Corps students from all over the country, who will give you honest reviews of the place they've spent a lot of time.

Buy snack cheap foods as often as possible. Noodles, snack foods, twelve packs of soda, etc, and keep your supply as full as possible. The business savvy student can make a really good killing off of his fellow students. But be careful, because depending on the rules of your particular center you can be terminated for "hustling" or "loan sharking". This is, however, a good way to cement your place near the top of the pecking order.

Buy your own shampoo and soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, and towel. Because the stuff they give you will not suffice.

Keep your pants on. I won't go into the numerous compromising positions you can find yourself in when you try to have intercourse with another student on the campus. It's not worth the risk. (On the other side of the coin, if you absolutely cannot control yourself, the campus Wellness Center does have condoms and other necessary precautions.)

Get up early. Don't wait for the staff to wake you up.

Shower! I cannot emphasize this point enough. If you're in the soft trades, shower in the morning, but if you're working in the hard manual labor trades, where you will be sweating like a hog shower in the afternoon before or after dinner, but before your dorm's headcount. If you go too long without a shower you risk getting placed on what is called a hygiene contract, and lets face it, the center has enough of a leash on you with out it.

Keep your room clean at all costs. If you have only one roommate this should be easy and if you're on your own it's even better. Just remember, if your roommate or roommates screw up and the room fails, it's your problem as well. You could end up being restricted from certain campus activities if an inspection fails, so keep this in mind.

Men: If you shave, buy yourself an electric razor. Trust me on that one.

Women: Buy your own personal supplies. Trust me on that one.

Get involved with activities! Every campus has it's own recreational center, so there's always at least something to do. Getting involved in as many ways as possible is great way to keep your sanity.

Look for ways to score brownie points. If this means volunteering to do extra chores, or helping to clean the gym/rec area, do it. It will pay off in the end.

These are just a few suggestions that can really help with your time at Job Corps. Above all else, heed this advice, which they will tell you a thousand times in your first week there: Avoid the Drama!

Wish Me Luck

The Human Resources department for the City of Salem was putting out feelers for garage attendant/cashiers, so I rushed down to the town office, only stopping at the shelter to get my spiffy blazer and take a hit of body spray. (externally, of coruse)

Hopefully I get called in for an interview. Because what better way for the Town of Salem to help a homeless man than by giving him a job so that he doesn't have to be homeless anymore...right?

Better Than Nothing Job Leads.

I had two possible leads today. Both are mostly dead ends because one: As much as I can walk eight or nine miles round trip, it doesn't nessecarily mean that I want to walk that much every single day for what amounts to a handful of grueling hours a week for just barely minimum wage.

You may say, "It's better than nothing."

You'd be wrong. A job like that is literally nothing as much as I would willingly commit to it, that is if I got it after the interview process, I wouldn't be making nearly enough to actually do much other than scrape by. I might get out of the shelter, but food would be a constant stretch.

Sure, I could go to the shelter for lunch and dinner, maybe. As long as I wasn't working at the time they were serving, because after I'm no longer a resident there they have no obligation to help me.

The point is, I need a job that lets me take care of both home and meals. Jumping on "better than nothing" should only be a last resort and at the very least it should be a second job as opposed to your only one. A "better than nothing" job should be a newspaper route while you're working at Denny's, or assisting an elderly woman in her home in between shifts at the Family Dollar.

Hell, the meger amount I was making off of tarot readings while I was working full time at Rite Aid was "better than nothing".