BLOG: My First "Job" is to Find One
Sam Adams
My first “job” as part of working, “100 Hours at Portland’s Most Common Jobs” initiative is to try to find one.
My search begins online with www.iMatchskills.com, from the Oregon Employment Department. It connects employers and job seekers in Oregon.
I fill out the questionnaire, using accurate information. I say my start time is negotiable and my hours can be flexible. I ask that my information not be shared with prospective employers so as to not waste their time – this is an experiment, after all.
www.iMatchskills.com, based on my answers to over 100 questions, concludes I have 68 occupational skills. I’m thinking, that sounds pretty good.
Expectantly, I press the button:
Hmmm, only one job matches my skills:
Job Title: Product Maintenance (JL ID 345212)
Hours per week: Full Time (40 hours per week)
Shifts: Days
Pay Range: $15.56/hr or $32,364.80/year
Education Required: None
The job duty description includes, “…Travel to various facilities to address issues and develop guidelines for new product setups, product mix changes and product costing component update reviews….”
After poking around on the website, I realize that I was probably matched with this job because I still have a “Class C” truck operator license – left over from the summer of 1985 driving mail between post offices in Eugene, Oregon.
Wanting to see what else I can find, I head out to SE Works, 6927 SE Foster Rd. The mission of SE Works is to "…strengthen the economic health and well-being of our diverse, southeast Portland community by increasing access to employment, educational, and supportive services.”
I arrive mid-afternoon. A pleasant woman at the front desk hands me an application and asks me to fill it out. I tell her I’m just looking. She keeps the application in front of me and says I still need to fill it out and hand it back to her before I leave.
I sit and start to fill in the blanks. I hear the woman at the front desk curse at the computer printer. It makes me smile. Talking with clients, caseworkers appear and disappear behind raggedy office cubicles.
I am half way through the questionnaire. I think, didn’t I just answer these questions online?
So, I walk back and I ask her if I they could use my www.imatchskills.com questionnaire, “We could print it out?”
She says no, I have to fill out the application each month that I go through the doors of SE Works.
I ask her if she could just keep it on file and pull it for me the next time I come back. She gives me the look like she has been asked that question a million times.
“No, you need to fill out of new one each month,” she insists.
I ask her where I can find the listing of jobs available. She hands me a stapled stack of faxes with today’s date on it.
I thumb through it, hotel room cleaner, waiter, bank teller – most at minimum wage. I ask her where the computers are located. She points to the back of the building as she also answers the phone.
Five adults and a child are randomly seated at about 25 computer terminals. The guy next to me is filling out the www.imatchskills.com questionnaire. I pretend to be reading the posters around the room to get a look at what people are doing.
One fellow is studying a website with the large word “terrorism” at the top of it. Strangely, a woman across the room is writing a letter to the editor supporting the City’s pullout of the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force. Another woman is writing what looks like a personal letter to a friend, and she glares at me when catches me looking at her computer screen.
I remember the application I am supposed to return as I walk towards the front door. I hang back until a couple people enter and I slip out.
My next stop is a state Employment Office, serving Gresham and east Portland. I didn’t realize how dour the environment of SE Works was until I went though the front doors of the Gresham office: new carpet; bright; a child care office; cheerful; a greeter at the front desk; a way-finding sign in four languages; a staffed computer room.
The friendly staff tours me though the building. In all fairness though, unlike my visit to SE Works, these people knew I was coming.
I ask what is the difference between what this office is suppose to do and what SE Works does?
“They get different federal funds.”
I am sure there is more to the story. Representing the City of Portland as the newest board member of Worksystems, Inc., the region's workforce agency, I will get a chance to find out.
Posted by Sam Adams on July 1, 2005
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Filed Under 100 Hours, Blog, East Portland, Front Page, Jobs & Economy
Comments by site visitors
One of the most critical problems of the employment system is that process is byzantine at best and dehumanizing at worst.
On one hand frontline nonprofit staff are hammered by the complexity of federal, state and local regulations & politics. The constant, unrelenting bureaucratic scruity results in client profiling that would put the LAPD to shame. They are forced to produce, produce -- looking for clients that represent an elusive quality of 'follow through'; the sense that an investment of time and energy will result in a job and increase in income after six months, which translates into a good rating for the agency.
On the other hand their is startling lack of customer service and support. What you experienced at SE Works could be repeated in many sectors of our nonprofit community at different times.
Let it be know that SE Works is a good organization and they work hard within the contstraints of their system. But everyone needs to understand that the conservative mantra of "everybody for themselves", which masquerades as 'individual rights' is already the daily experience of low-income people.
The best help you could give someone in the employment system is to help them understand how the system works, how to advocate for themselves and how to present themselves as a 'follow through' person.
Posted by: Robert Bole | Sep 6, 2005 4:13:43 PM
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You are welcome or one of your folks is welcome to ride part or all of a shift with me in a heavy haul truck and get a personal look at the problems we cope with every day. It will be a different point of view than you are accustomed to.
I work Mon. Thru Fri. From +- 1600 to 0300+-
If You are interested I will make the arrangements with my company. and we will arrange it if not well that is life.
Thanks,
David
Posted by: David | Aug 1, 2005 4:51:55 PM