Reflections on Facing the “Worst”
I’m still not sure how I ended up walking the streets of Charlotte and approaching strangers for money. I had shown up for a trial interview as a “management trainee” for a non-profit organization, expecting to put my degree in Social Services to good use (finally), when suddenly I found myself in a van with a scraggly New Yorker, a ditzy Irishwoman, and a box full of polyester pumpkin bags. It was the summer after my senior year, and instead of saving the world, apparently I was to peddle trick-or-treat bags throughout the city (supposedly I was helping to find missing children, but the details of exactly how I was doing this are still unclear). Basically, I was in my own personal hell.
I had always strived to avoid strangers and awkward situations ever since I grabbed the wrong daddy’s legs during a trip to the zoo. Not only did I wrap my arms around an unknown pair of knees, I clearly remember singing about zebras and dancing an impromptu jig around said knees seconds before hearing my father’s amused voice call me from a distance. A tendency to blabber before the opposite sex and my penchant for falling down in public (usually for no particular reason and in front of the object of my desire) further cemented my belief that unsolicited conversation and I didn’t mix. But even though a phone call to the pizza man could be quite distressing, I mustered up all my courage and placed a call to a non-profit organization that had advertised in the paper. I was going to succeed in the real world, earn good money, and make a difference! I was going to be a “management trainee.”
The next evening, full of youthful promise and with visions of the Nobel Peace Prize swirling in my head, I drove to Charlotte. Since my interview was early the next morning, I rented a room at the most luxurious of all highway-side accommodations: the Super 8 Motel at exit 7 off of I-85. After catching up on my Indian soap operas in the lobby during check-in, I hurried to my room to place a phone call. But there was no dial tone, only a sticky, grimy film on the earpiece. The Super 8 Motel, being the fine establishment that it was, required a separate deposit to use the phone. It was my very first independent woman adventure, and I couldn’t even figure out how to call my mommy.
A couple of hours later, after a brief conversation with the snide hotel clerk and, eventually, a drive to a pay phone, I was in my room with a can of Pringles, Must See TV, and my nerves as my only companions. I had always found myself to be great company—a slightly geeky, but trustworthy, associate—and spent the evening (between bites and commercials) convincing myself what a great impression I would make the following morning. Of course, it didn’t work, but it did pass the time.
Self-confidence had never been one of my strong suits. A world-class worrier, I could easily spend ten times more energy fretting about something than it would take to actually do it. It was never a matter of whether the glass was half-full or half-empty; it was a matter of my dropping the glass, cutting my foot, and winding up in the emergency room. Occasionally the rational woman that lived within my head would make an appearance and say something encouraging, but the neurotic woman within would be right behind her, baseball bat in hand, poised for a fight. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night.
I woke early the next morning in order to have some extra time to worry and to iron my best (and only) suit. I arrived at the Missing Children Help Center about ten minutes ahead of schedule, ready to be whisked into the executive director’s swanky office and introduced to the benevolent workings of an illustrious organization. Instead, I walked into a dank room resembling the lobby of a roller skating rink, with worn-down burgundy carpet and plastic chairs lining the walls. In those chairs were dozens upon dozens of people, of all ages, shapes, and sizes. “Who can all these people be? They can’t all have missing children,” I thought stupidly.
We all had interviews, every single one of us. Like cattle, but with less dignity, we were shuttled in and out of the director’s office two at a time. The executive director was unshaven and wearing corduroys. He smacked gum, took phone calls, and quoted Austin Powers during the interview (although I took his exclamation of “Yeah, Baby!” as a good sign). With little or no conversation, I was told that I seemed like a good candidate and offered a chance to “go out in the field” with a couple of employees. I naively assumed that my résumé, the highlight of which at the time was “Library Student Assistant,” had impressed the director so much that I was being streamlined through the interview process. I had yet to learn that, in some professions, being “impressive” and being “a warm body” are one and the same.
I drove home from Charlotte with hope in my heart and plans to drive all the way back the next day. Upon my return for what I assumed would be akin to a second interview, the director started calling out names and assigning us to an employee with whom we would go out in the field. I was extremely surprised just how many candidates were deemed “impressive” enough to continue on to this stage of the interview, but this was soon forgotten as my initial anxiety resurfaced. I was hoping to be assigned to one of the less threatening-looking employees, but instead I got Ray, a loudmouthed, grungy, chain-smoking New Yorker with an attitude problem. Either my inner plea of “Dear God, please not him,” went unheard, or else God has an odd sense of humor.
It’s easy to have faith in God when nothing really wrong ever happens to you. Sure, I had failed a couple math tests in my lifetime, but in all fairness that may have had more to do with my study habits than with being smote by God. So I couldn’t figure out why He would punish me with the insufferable task of riding around in an old van all day with a dirty, not-so-friendly stranger. Surely Job had never faced a trial like this!
I was pleased to find out that Ray and I would at least have a non-threatening companion, a doltish Irishwoman named Erin, whose pantyhose pooled around her ankles and whose mouth never stopped yapping. As I rode through Charlotte in that beat-up Chrysler, the details of what we were going to be doing becoming painfully clear, I listened to Erin babble on and heard a discourse from Ray about why strip clubs were the best place to solicit donations (apparently it was helpful to have a large pool of would-be donors with small bills handy). I had almost forgotten about the task at hand until we made our first stop at a hair salon on the outskirts of the city.
Thus began a long, painful day of running to and from the car, hauling a box of tacky wares over to any stranger who happened to cross our path, and sticking a flyer with the faces of missing children in that person’s face. Thankfully Ray and Erin did most of the talking. I silently held up the pumpkin bags, imagining myself to be some kind of twisted spokesmodel, sort of the Vanna White of the street corner. We didn’t stop for lunch because we might miss the opportunity of a $10 donation, $3 of which naturally went into Ray’s or Erin’s pocket, and we did not skip over anybody or any place: businesses, private residences, hospitals, it didn’t matter. If there were warm bodies about (preferably with wallets handy), Ray asked for money.
Eventually the intense need to be swallowed up by the Earth passed, and, with jaw clenched, I trudged onward. Nine-and-a-half hours later, after being stared at, glared at, ignored, and taunted, we returned to the office. There my car appeared miraculously before me, a mecca of personal freedom on a day when I had to quash my fears, aversions, and the very foundation of my personality. If someone had asked me the day before to delineate the worst possible scenario, I, even in my most neurotic form, would have had difficulty imagining the torment. When it was finally over, I practically vaulted from that horrendous van into the warm air of the southern summer evening.
I didn’t go back into the office, or even say goodbye to my “charitable” companions. As I traveled down I-85, I could hear the neurotic woman within me start to stir. She was wondering if this was all that was out there, if I would be forty and still living with my parents, if “Student Library Assistant” would be the pinnacle of my career. But for once, the rational woman picked up the baseball bat and pounded me with reason: could I really take a day of peddling pumpkins so seriously?
Sometimes even a neurotic has to laugh.
A brief post script--it's 6-7 years later, and I now know that my avoidance of strangers and awkward situations was because of a whopping case of Social Anxiety Disorder. I also know the joy that is Zoloft, a medication which I'll probably take for the rest of my life (I've tried going off it before, and the results are not pretty). I may have been embarrassed by all this at one point in my life, but not now. I know I'm pretty awesome...Steff be damned.
