I Can't Get a Job at Taco Bell

Or Hooters

Some of you hate me, which is fine. A few of you have denigrated my appearance, or used ageism against me, saying I look like I’m forty. I actually turned 50 in April, and in real life, most people think I’m about 35.

I’m not vain, but I’m not blind, either. I still get carded for beer sometimes, which is strange, as when I first started spending a lot of time in NYC when I was a teenager, I was never carded for anything.

My mom is Chinese, and in my case, it’s nature over nurture. I used to smoke and I still drink a lot, but I’ve always exercised. It started in high school, then continued out of sheer boredom, or became a habit, but while I still have a full head of hair, can run a mile in under six minutes, and look relatively healthy, I feel about 100 years old on the inside.

Injuries from as far back as high school are starting to hurt again. I dislocated both of my shoulders playing baseball almost two decades ago, tore the labrum in the left, and now that shoulder is locking up.

I also dislocated my ankle when I was 29. The doctors told me my right foot was a bit necrotic (or dying faster than the rest of me) and now, I can feel it.

While I review math at least once a year and try to keep learning, I’m not as quick as I was. It’s just an inevitable fact of life. Once you’re past 25, your body and mind begin to get addled.

I was great at math and still am, but much slower, and for those of you who were good in high school or college and haven’t reviewed in a few years or don’t deal with math on a daily basis, try reviewing. The first time I did, I was horrified. I’d forgotten almost everything.

My former thesis sponsor/statistics professor has a BS in calculus (I didn’t know such a thing existed) and one friend/former manger has an MS in mathematics. I found out when I told him I didn’t know how close I was to a math or programming degree on my way to an MA in psychology, and that maybe I could have gotten a better job.

He told me he double majored in mathematics and programming, and here we were, at the same stupid job.

I asked the professor if he remembered any calculus, as it doesn’t come up that often in statistics, and he said hell no. My former manager said all he remembered about math was related to gambling, and I’m pretty much in the same boat. I can tutor Calculus I (almost no one who goes further needs a tutor), but I typically use math to count cards, which should be allowed. I have access to the same data as anyone else, and they’re kicking me out of a casino just because I know how to count?

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m increasingly prone to going off on strange tangents, but this might all tie up in the end.

I used to always have two jobs, one waiting tables or as a bartender, and another to keep my necrotic foot in the corporate door. Health insurance has gotten so bad and corporate culture, at least in New York, has become so annoying and rapacious I quit.

Maybe I’ll end up being a security guard or janitor. Those guys at least have unions, the pay isn’t great but not terrible either, and my mortgage is paid off and my expenses are low. I spend more to get drunk alone at home than I do for the maintenance fee on my co-op.

The minimum wage in NYC is $16.50, and I could get by on that working part time, but to work at Taco Bell or McDonald’s, I’d have to change my resume and maybe buy a fake birth certificate.

Everything is online now, most jobs are scams, and once fast food managers see my resume, they think I’ll run back to a corporate job as soon as I can and can’t believe how old I am. I have to delete my first three corporate jobs, the first of which I started when I was 22 in 1997.

At Hooters, the sexism appalls me. I have abs, I’m willing to wear the outfit, and even offered to knot my shirt to show more torso, but they just won’t hire a man to be a server.

As a waiter, you can make good money here, and if you’re a male server, you’ve unloaded trucks and carried crates of wine and 100 pound bags of meat up from the basement, and usually end up closing, or cleaning up at night. At one coffee shop, I came in to close on my off days. They were worried about my female coworker getting murdered, and while it sucked for me, I liked her and couldn’t blame them. She was a few inches shorter than me, maybe 5’6” or 5’7”, weighed about 95 pounds, and was cute, or a much easier target.

I liked the restaurants that employed women (some won’t), and it’s typically better than working with all men. The women make men less psychotic and and crazy, and I’ve worked with great women servers and bartenders, but if you need to unload two tons of food from a truck, it makes more sense to send the guys out to do it, and it was actually kind of a relief. Let the ladies deal with the fucking customers, or hold down the fort, while I get to go outside and carry enormous slabs of meat.

It was also better for the women, which is why I should be allowed to work at Hooters. Some places only hire attractive women, and a few I talked with on mixed staffs were happy to have guys working with them. They didn’t get groped or harassed nearly as much, and if they did, there were 12 angry men just waiting for an excuse to murder someone. Waiting tables here will drive you crazy. There are just too many people, and some rushes last for over six hours.

You usually have at least six tables, each table and seat is numbered, and there are never enough drink trays or spoons. The worst spot to be in is behind the dessert counter. You have to make desserts for everyone, it takes more time so you have fewer tables and make the least money, and restaurants generally keep their ice cream as cold as possible, or rock hard. My first shift behind a dessert counter, I went outside immediately afterwards and started smoking and screaming at the sky. The manager came out and said to smoke another cigarette, and that most people quit after their first turn making deserts.

At other places, the women told me to breathe. It was just a fucking spoon, and one would turn up eventually.

I don’t know if I can wait tables again. The last table I served, I knew it. There are only so many tables a person has in them, and that place, which is supposedly “high dining,” never had enough drink trays or spoons and had three managers on the floor. The manager by the bar would say screw it, just carry the drinks out in your hands, then the floor manager would ask why I wasn’t using a drink tray. I wanted to murder her and all of the people at that last table, so I just walked out.

These industries have learned how to squeeze people just like colleges. In NYC, they prefer if you have a certificate to be a janitor. Fast food places want a certificate in food handling. I’ve spent most of my career as some sort of proofreader, and now places want you to have a degree in proofreading. I passed the actuary exam ten years ago and that used to be all you needed, but now, they want an actuarial degree.

I’m going to get a security guard license through the state while it’s still relatively cheap (a bit under $200.00), but this is such horseshit. You have to pay to get a job? Even at corporate jobs, I was aware a competent 11 year-old could do the stupid shit I was doing.

Now, with all of my experience, no one wants to hire me, primarily because I have too much experience and they don’t want to invest in on-boarding someone who might jump to another job.

The silver lining here is that I can play guitar and sing, or busk. I’ve done it before and made over $100.00 in a few hours. Finding a spot is rough, but the other buskers at least give fair warning. The last time I did this, a busking representative told me they knew I was new, but couldn’t play where I was anymore. I was too close to another busker. He said if I played there again, they’d have to break my guitar.

My first time busking was in London when I was in college in 1994. I lost my wallet, and back then, it wasn’t easy to get bank cards back or money wired when you were abroad, and my parents didn’t have much money to send anyway. I was making about $180 a night, and people also gave me joints, beer, and cheeseburgers. After a few months, the cops asked if I had a license and I thought that was insane. A license to play guitar on the sidewalk?

They said they’d have to arrest me if they saw me again and apologized. I told them about losing my wallet and being broke and they empathized, but said they didn’t have a choice, so I ended up dealing hash and pot. That was probably the most money I’ve ever earned, I blew all of it in pubs, and I regret nothing.

I’m considering a lawsuit against Hooters. This is just sexism, plain and simple, and my body, my choice. I know I don’t fit their demographic, but maybe I could change their corporate culture.

The primary problem is that I’m sick of working and having to pretend I want to work at job interviews. I can’t do it anymore, and end up saying who the hell wants to work? Would you want to if you weren’t getting paid? All I want is enough money to live, just like you.

Investing in a world that is much closer to collapse than most realize seems pointless, I’ve saved just enough to creep toward social security, assuming it still exists, and I’ve found a good spot to play in a park and know how to play hundreds of songs. I can take requests, and I know what works. If people are ignoring you, start singing about them. G, E-minor, C, D. He wants her, but she’s not sure, he looks like a bum and she looks like a squirrel.

AI won’t take that job, and unless I can become a paperboy again (I want to go full circle career wise), this will be the most satisfying way to go out. I’m a decent musician, two teachers told me I could be a professional studio drummer when I was 14 and was already technically a professional (I was playing out with bands and getting paid), and while guitarists are a dime a dozen and I’m middling, I’m good enough, and it won’t get me evicted. I don’t know how I had the energy to be a drummer, and it wasn’t the drumming that drained me, it was the constant war with neighbors.

I don’t have much joy or hope, but I’ve got plenty of spite and rage, and I’d love to rub it in everyone’s face. Everyone who told me playing flutes and harmonicas or any other instrument was a waste of time. My first instrument was the trumpet. My parents and neighbors complained it was too loud, so I switched to the drums, which are 10 times louder and shake the earth.

Learning to be a musician is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. You have to record yourself and be brutally honest. I was lucky with the drums. Most people just can’t do it, even if they’re great otherwise. An ex-girlfriend was stunned when I quit music and went back to math. I told her playing was just too difficult, being in a band is like being married to four people you end up hating, and my best shot as a drummer would drive everyone crazy, including her.

The bands I was in were good. We recorded everything, and they accepted the truth after hearing it. We had to be better, and the drummer is in charge. I knew their weaknesses, when and how to cue them in, and when to takeover. A guitarist flubs a solo and tries to save it (they always do and make it worse), I bail them out. The electricity cuts out or an amp blows, I keep the beat and solo.

I was unfairly harsh on them. Everyone screws up, and I didn’t feel the pressure as much, or at least not in the same way. I was in the back, they’re facing the audience, and a couple of other guys would fill in alone if there was a total disaster. One time, the electricity cut out just as I broke three drum heads, and the bass player went out and played the banjo and sang while we tried to fix everything. The crowd was forgiving, understood what was happening, and that we were all teenagers. The owners paid us in beer, and the people said we sounded good until everything went to hell.

I miss the drums, but a guitar is so much easier to carry. It took years for me to learn my range and how to sing, and now, I have a good voice. I have it recorded and there’s room for improvement, but it’s passable. I’m not John Lennon, but I have the same range and I’m getting there with my voice.

The first thing you’re taught when you play is to never stop. What seems like a glaring error to you most people won’t notice, and after playing in high school bands, the marching band, and for college basketball teams, you will fuck up, which is forgivable. Dragging everyone else down is not.

For the record, I’ve only been to Hooters once. A friend dragged me there, and the only reason I caved was because they had $5 pitchers. I worked as a canvasser on Long Island for a year after after college and one of the doors I knocked on, a Hooters girl came out. She was my age or a little older and one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen (#1 was a prostitute in Rome. The second she walked out the door, cars screeched to a halt). I’d already waited tables and she looked stressed out, so I pretended I got the wrong address and apologized.

As she was closing the door, I told her she was ridiculously attractive and could get a better job in the city. She looked at me from head to toe.

“I know I could and I will will, and so could you. What’s stopping you?”

She closed the door before I could answer.