One

The spiders are after me.

Deep in the unseen catacombs of the Internet job placement services I have never heard of are out there, aggregating resumes from other sites, and matching me to jobs. Good-sounding jobs, right up the alley I have backed myself into, at the end of which I am frantically scrabbling at the chain-link fence in too-big shoes trying to escape. I almost escaped once. Terminated with a fat severance, I went back to school to finish the bachelors I abandoned 30 years ago. I didn’t get to the end of February before Moloch* was back, asking if I would be willing to come back as a contractor. At that moment I should have said no, and gone on with a full 15 hours. I would have graduated by now. I would be on a new path. At the time, with a daughter in Loyola and the prospect of a son who had not decided between UNO and Loyola’s music programs, I had to contemplate writing another fat check to the Jesuits if he choose Loyola.

I accepted, and dropped some classes and managed to work and finish the the remaining three.

Moloch. I have nailed my theses and neuroses very publicly to the portals of the Internet, and I know enough not to name my employer. Moloch seemed an apt choice. Ginsberg’s Whitmanesque rant against America has echoed in my skull since I first read it and the further I plodded up the corporate path, the louder it sounded.

I am not anxious to go back.

It is good to know those jobs are out there if I need them. All I need to do for now is to hew to my salary demands, knowing I have fallen into the ranks of contractors, am no longer a valuable member of the team but a disposable commodity, a human pencil. I have to hope they will realize I have no bachelors degree, demand too much money, wear my hair in a long queue (I think a skull pendent at the end best for these interviews) and they will decide to pass, all so I can finish school and take some time to decide what I will do next.

If I return to corporate America it will be on my own terms. I know how good I was at the job I no longer want, have a folder full of fawning references who will attest that I am King Kong Superman and quite a catch. The work-a-day playing field is so titled against us that most people cling desperately to niches lest they fall. If I return, it will be with an ice-axe confident in my hand, a disturbing gleam in my eye and the determination to blaze a new route.

* “Moloch, whose soul is electricity and banks…” — Allen Ginsberg, Howl. [Who’s in your wallet?]