Monday, April 04, 2022

Mending the Gap

I have been staring at my Resume for quite a while now. Not the best use of a Saturday evening, but then, what else have I got to do? Weekends are a social construct, created solely for the employed. So here I go, parsing from end to end, working all the way down from the summary on Page 1 to the list of references three pages later. It has been the same funk; pick a spot to add a bunch of detail, or turn of phrase, wait awhile as if the ink needed to dry first, then hurriedly hit Backspace to get rid of it all. Looks like it is all in there, yet eerily incomplete. Blather in active or passive voice, is still, just that. Even a machine would conk off if tasked with writing its own brochure and service history. I tried doing this at a waking hour, late in the night or with and without some Bourbon in me. Nothing seems to work. I need to focus. This late afternoon surge is fueled by coffee, for a change.

 

As ever, the head-hunter wanted me to 'rehash it a bit' as it 'held promise' for a 'role’ at a ‘prominent client' of theirs. I have 'heard' those 'words' so many 'times' over the last year or who is counting, it has long since stopped evoking pessimism, gallows humor or sighs. I just know she just assigned me homework, and like a sullen teenager (whenever was I that young anyway, feels like I was born forty-five) I'm at it under protest. Reformat, rephrase, never say 'embellish' as it gives the game away. Attach it to an online form, and then for some reason, key it all again into the next page of same form. Slap on a Covering Letter, lest the topless contents scandalize modesty. Hit Send. Then wait for lightning to strike.

 

It is a copy of the original that I've been slaving over. I should have just updated the one she had marked up. But could not shake the fear that I would screw it up, vandalizing an ancient relic while trying to restore it. These chills often creep up on me, my heart starts racing and body flinches at the imaginary buzzing of a swarm. Which reminds me, my anxiety medication is due a refill. My luck is due a refill. Mental health is a social construct, affordable only to the employed.

 

The summary reads like a criminal record. In a fair world it might even be considered one. All the pointless things I set my mind to, cheered, fretted, and often got an ulcer over, as life happened around me. That's almost thirty years and four months of working for money. What a colossal waste of time.

 

So, what did I do recently? What did I do? Well, for starters, my last ‘brand name’ employers gently set me downhill by firing me at the very start of the pandemic. While the world was wondering whether chicken soup and/or brandy worked as prophylaxis, my employers of nearly a decade, had very uncharacteristically managed to see the Future. A Future with the virus, a Future in suspended animation. Also, a Future without me, along with a few hundred others packed off weeks before the first alumnus would succumb to the plague. Now, that's uncanny foresight. Got to hand it to them. Come to think of it, they should be hooting that from every damn rooftop. That they haven’t yet is self-effacing humility bordering on the cute.

 

I was told repeatedly that the Organization was in considerable pain owing to the decision to let us go. Over the phone where they broke the news along with the usual passive-aggressive boilerplate, in the Termination Letter short of a Crying Face Emoji and then the oh-so-predictable Press Statement. Pain, presumably from where they had to stick all those pink slips. Repeatedly. Heaven forbid a bad Quarter should befall the firm. The virus may be cruel to mortals, but can you imagine the beating the stock would take?

 

Then there’s The Gap. The indelicate term head-hunters use while referring to the virus-pocked years. I stayed mostly indoors, mostly healthy, mostly alone and mostly without steady pay. I lost my job twice, my home for good, visitation rights (I can’t even), and almost my sanity. I’ve been in and out of jobs, some just to keep the wheels turning. I’ve been selected multiple times never to hear from those folks again, let go as businesses folded, had at least one horrible video interview fiasco that led to rejection. I was even offered a position where I was passed over earlier, as their eventual pick died of the virus a few weeks in. It is not as much a gap in my CV, as bullet holes left by an automatic. Tragic, explainable, yet somehow unmentionable detail on my professional summary, as true Résumé connoisseurs abhor any vacuum. Any blip is to be sandpapered into the background. Like some Court Historian sneaking away any mention of the Royal Concubine from posterity. Seems to be an industry norm. Passed down from antiquity; I'm sure some hapless survivor of Pompeii would have been made to explain away that inconvenience.

 

Now back to the document. I simply cannot seem to edit this anymore. "It is a story that we're telling" as one particularly unhelpful recruiter recently chimed. The catchphrases set to snag onto any resume search are not amenable to creative writing; expertise in Java and Java expert are both the same. And untrue, either way. I’ve never coded in decades, at least not since my third job. That one was short on pay but long on life lessons. I left the job and that City to nurse a heartbreak. Never been there since. I’m little over a decade removed from being “sixty-four”, but there used to be a rather fetching Beatles fan who loved to hum that tune with me.

 

I digress, and that’s the whole deal. It is not only that the well-worn resume has little give for creative flourish; they are tuned and taut from years of “story-telling”, paeans to my glory (of course, all under relentless fire), couched in the most environmental-friendly humble-brag in the market. Every line’s a winner. I also walk with each line into the past. Of years, spending almost every waking hour creating this celebration of mediocrity that my life seems now. Instead, I could have loved, listened, traveled, been more reasonable, been more available, been more Dad. Every line’s a loser.

 

In the time the world was at a standstill, I gave all I could, while taking only what I needed. I volunteered, raised money, gave money when I had, clapped for cops & caregivers, ran errands for neighbors, stood in line to get my share at the food-bank, stood in line to unload trucks at the Care Home, ached with the vaccine, wept it didn't come sooner. I lost money, I lost touch, I lost friends and neighbors, just like countless across the world would have. I miss not being able to spend more easily, I miss those who passed, I miss being ‘busy’. I miss the old life I had. Even top-shelf booze. Yet, do I want everything back? Or, for that matter, anything back as before? I've never felt so devoid of worry in like forever; not the money worry, that I got plenty. The working person’s worry: worry I might not measure up at work, my raise, the next appraisal, the daily 'stand-up' call, the snarky client. Don’t care anymore.

 

Everything ends. I need to find something that makes the rest of my days worthwhile.

There’s no gap in my resume. The resume is the gap.

Saturday, February 01, 2020

Islands in a Stream


There was a couple already seated at the café as I walked in. I was not expecting customers an hour before opening. The government has its ways, and a rather garbled and breathless call from my regional boss was to get to the shop immediately.

The light was low, and I didn’t know who they were until the woman turned around. I almost tripped as I rushed in. She was my wife. Still is. But why here and now? Our eyes met, and I noticed her lips pursed as she fought the inkling of a smile. She just stood up abruptly, and stepped to one side, hands behind her back, eyes forward. I looked over to her accomplice, a short, squat gentleman and much older. He barely acknowledged my existence, continuing to peer at what looked like our purchase ledger.

“Inspection”, she then muttered in my direction. As if to break the ice or give me a hint. As I paused to take her in again, it occurred to me that this, after all was the Health Inspector. For reasons best known to these Small Gods, deigning us with a presence at 8 AM, the shift crew barely into their aprons.

I put on a smile for her, but she had already looked away. Well, it seems they both agree I'm not worth a nod or smile.

The Inspector remained seated, feasting his eyes over a table strewn with bound volumes, file folders carrying our logo, and at least one framed inspection certificate pulled from the back kitchen. I am sure he scared my crew enough to pull off all these. He did not bother to return my introduction or my greeting, as I pulled up in a chair across him. This was coming, for we were informed he would be looking up franchisees in the area. But a walk-in well before opening hour was not expected. 
I typically don’t turn up until 11, and the guys on the early shift were at a loss handling anything other than coffee. I would have preferred a small fire.

I was surprised I didn’t recognize her sooner. Isn’t that odd, the way we sense another’s presence, instinctively knitting together the happy shapes we have come to love and caress. Yet over time, these instincts come stapled with a sea of memories. I would know her from a moving silhouette, just by the way her chin may drop while looking away. That unmistakable glance down and to her side, as if checking her profile on an imaginary mirror. She just did that, while I’m sure dragging her eyes away from me. Lingering but only for a moment, then the bevel gear smoothly let her face line up ahead. She always hated that metaphor, especially the part about gears in her head. Also, inopportune; first time I tried that line, she woke up from a nap with a crick of the neck, and then promptly blamed me.

Those were good times, of a sort. In that life, I serviced industrial equipment for a living. She tried her hand at all that could keep things moving along. Tuition for kids in the neighborhood, office assistant at the local Cooperative Bank. You know, whatever helped make ends meet. It was not easy loving and living in Mumbai, not for those who had known better of both elsewhere. It is a city that trims your time and space, and as the grind starts getting to you, you realize there is little use of either. Only a matter of time, before the Island City makes islands of each other.

It used to be a point of mild argument as whose idea was it to move to the city. In a sense, still unresolved. Before long the point of order ceased to even be mildly amusing. As we moved jobs, rentals, neighborhoods and luck, it became the cancer that ate away at whatever constituted ‘us’. We never had illusions of the high life, the city provided enough to get by, just never enough to cash-in and leave.

Now I realize why I didn’t recognize her sooner. She was in her Civil Defence attire, a dark khaki saree and blouse combination. More resembling the mud she had to scrub off after directing early morning monsoon traffic. Would have been a poorly received wisecrack, if I had ever tossed it her way. But by the time she started dressing up for this part-time Government job, we were well past speaking to each other. I had started spending the better part of the week in the northern suburbs, at work and away, while she eventually moved in with her elder sister. We had no children, and that was the only blessing.
We hadn’t spoken in like forever.
It is a recent addition to a Health Inspector’s team, this man or woman in uniform. It was never the norm, not until recently. Rumor has it, a small hotelier decided to ease one such pesky inspector into a vat of sambhar. Stale, of course, and thankfully cold, saving a life.
Coffee Shops are not rough trade for the Public Health department, so only the lady civil guard.

I have been managing this place for a few months now. It is a steady pay and a steady place of work. There was a charm to working the skills I learnt at the Polytechnic, and all those years honing them. Not to mention the travel. I would have stories to tell around my itinerant lifestyle, of far flung factories and their boilers, and the sorry characters that ruled over them, to a warm-hearted audience of one. Busy chopping veggies, or packing for the next day, ready with a laugh, egging me to tell more. Now that I live alone, and work here, I wonder what I saw in all that travel. Or maybe it is just that there are no more stories to share.

The shift supervisor hovered with a cup of coffee. The Inspector would have a muffin. Another muffin, to be precise. For he’s been on this steady diet, apparent to me from the row of empty spaces encroaching on the display. My assistant’s “Madam, would you like…” was immediately cut off with a hum and nod of her head. Eyes blinking all the while. Her way of turning down something with overt politeness. Ran in her family, she used to say with some pride. She insisted that refusing food, or at least making the effort to, was good manners, while I happily tucked in whenever we visited as family.  It always triggered a back and forth of ‘why-you-eat-so-much’ and ‘why-not’ all the way back to our one-room apartment, until we kissed each other to silence.

She did not seem to have had anything since walking in here. Not even a bottle of water. Now the Inspector would have no more, as he magnanimously waved away a croissant being presented by the thoughtful supervisor. The visit might just be ending. I stared at the super, hoping to convey merely via facial muscles, that he had to stop feeding the trough since no one pays for all this. 

Pushing aside the last folder, the Inspector was up and about. He would have a report in good time, and there was a campus franchise nearby he had to raid before ten. All this spoken in a monotone, to no one in particular. He marched to the doors. Yet a thousand worth of inventory was gone, and yet there was the supervisor, looking over the counter hoping to take another order.

She had already turned and begun to make a beeline to the doors. It was then I noticed the white stitched-on mark on her left shoulder, a single inverted ‘V’. She never told me she had been promoted. The doors chimed as they stepped out.

This would have been quite a story too, had I someone to tell this to.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Never Rains in California



"It never rains in California
But girl don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours"
- *Albert Hammond (1972)*

These days I wake up to an unmistakable drum roll. It must be 5 AM, for that is exactly when the sump announces its utility, welcoming the morning ration, only to be briefly interrupted by a tap left open overnight sputtering to life. Vented, they make their peace, and the increasingly muffled beat picks up from where it left off. I don’t need to be up and about yet; this brass band aficionado has some more time remaining prone, appreciating the upcoming finer movements of the ensemble.

This third-floor two-room tenement, overlooking a wide expanse of greenish lake bed devoid of water and forsaken by Bangalore’s infamous land sharks, is shared among 3 of us old batch mates. The only employed ‘bread-winner’, and occasional generous benefactor, has justifiably hogged the main bedroom while we make do with the living. My immediate roommate maintains owl hours, sleeping during the day, and most important, leaving the “water-watch” to me. The sole duty being to be aware enough to close the valve once full; our landlord decided that installing a float valve was being too lenient on the serfs.

It’s hot, muggy and the rains have not been kind. We might be onto a drought, or so they say on TV. The arthritic ceiling fan, burdened with dust and grime, barely manages to push around its own shadow. I feel empty and tired. It seems like the dread that envelops you when you know you are forgetting something, something too frightening to recollect.

My elder sister had called me yesterday. It was very unlike her to dial, for from me she expects the right and privilege of a call incoming. She was at her in-laws, and sounded worried, mostly that I might be worrying too much, a circular logic that plays out even when my mother calls. I agree it is tough on her, always rooting for a ‘never-do-well’ sibling, in the shadow of an over-achieving duo that is her elder brother and her husband. “Try getting in somewhere. You can still give GRE. Wait, you gave GRE. What happened? Did they call?” and so on.

My mother, on the other hand, finds joy in being oblivious. I had made a passing mention, in hindsight avoidable, about a University in Southern California that I may apply to. The selection process to their School of Engineering was somehow lost on ‘simple village people’, as she liked to describe herself and her ilk. As a result perhaps, now everyone and her aunt have been appraised on her pride and joy moving to a place in the US, apparently named after a Mumbai suburb.  Yes it’s in Santa Cruz, CA, but she finds my correction beside the point. I am the cautionary tale, sheep gone astray, last on the boat, all rolled into one, whose mention in family circles used to attract a sigh and a change in topic. At long last, this one’s got onto something good, just like his brother, something that she might secretly hope would not involve discussing marks or grades, at least for now. She was relieved; I could be the next Santa Claus for all she cared.

Father stayed out of all this. His first two offspring had given him enough to take pride over. The eldest was “Stateside”, as in “hey, Bro, give me a ring once you're Stateside”. In his book, it only reads as, don’t call me while still a loser. The girl, my sister, a doctor, wasn’t doing too badly either. Until I’d say she married another, that Gold Medalist of Psycho, whose idea of small talk was always regurgitating a humble-brag as Fate had him cruelly torn between choosing Engineering or Medicine. The nut wisely chose the path to asylum sciences.

Not once did my Dad care to ask where I was headed, or why. He might have felt he had done his part. Most commonly summarized in “Do you need any more money?” a pleasantry he shared on every occasion he spoke to his youngest. It was not that my folks were comfortable. My father was very much retired, too proud to ask for help, and a poor judge of his own limitations. A combination that led to, among others, his recent ill-advised venture into organic farming, apparently to supplement his pension. The rains failed him, much like me, his crops wilting between a parched earth and a clear Nellore sky. But I suspect he saved the bulk of his disappointment over his bad loans and wasted crop.

On my part, I took the middle-ground in all I ventured. Especially in most fields academic, I gave a net return meeting the median GPA from a middling engineering college. The GRE score too stayed true to style. To complete the picture I aimed high enough to hit one of ‘US News & World Report’s “Top 3 Very Average Engineering Schools”, if there were one such category. For some reason I saw this as another shot at redemption, to prove to the naysayers that I too could make it. Not that many would say 'nay', that judgement was passed long ago. A Post Grad from the US, a Green Card, who knew. To be in the august company of those who got to dial their brother, this time local; only dial, for hell would need to be much cooler before I go visit that pompous schmuck.

The outlook might have been average, but a fortune was spent on classes, my present lodging and such, when it might have been much more prudent to look for a real job, any job. My sister had made that into a pointless crusade, only for me to play the 'Higher Education’ card. All this was not easy on my folks, though my mother did mention the troubles in passing. Like I said, he is too proud to ask, or tell.

I am not that proud. Not enough to lie to own sister. I did tell her of the red bordered envelope dropped off late yesterday. Post marked Santa Cruz, premium air, the University Seal large and mighty to the top-right corner. The document felt like smooth cardboard, triple-bond. The words seemed to float up, as the ground beneath gave way like a mountain of gravel.
They regret to inform my application has been rejected, the number of applicants being high, and so on.

The ringing from the tank had by now receded into a conspiratorial blubbering. Time to get up and about, for the Lord of the house had mentioned a series of walk-in interviews on the other side of town.
Headed for the exit, I glimpsed the small print on the envelope left face-down on the teapoy. 

"The State of California encourages all to save water, during its most serious drought since 1991”