Marching Into The Peace Corps – Part One

Part One: As Carman once sang, “God don’t care what the circumstance, He just wants your faith and trust in Him”.

A lot of things happen in your life when you’ve lost nearly everything; you fundamentally change on levels you didn’t know existed inside you. As you become somewhat more dependant on God and friends, you learn which ones will stand by you no matter how bad life gets. There is a greater appreciation for those people with each passing day that deepens, and you realize exactly how blessed you truly are by the Father.

In my case, life has been very rough. The employment scene in Texas has become more complex than I could’ve ever imagined. I grew up with the values Mom passed down from my Grandma; “work hard, keep your nose clean, give an honest day’s work, and you’ll get ahead”. If that were only true today, I would still be working, but it’s not.

Texas has changed in the past eight and a half years; those creeds I was brought up with do not apply here. Your ability to do a job is based heavily upon your credit score; if it is not good, then you’re automatically branded. One employer said to me “if your credit isn’t good, then you’re not responsible, and you’re an automatic theft risk to us – why should we take the chance if we can weed you out in the interview process?”

It’s funny when you think about this selective discrimination – and it is. Donald Trump went broke and yet there was a second chance for him. I could name a ton of celebrities who have nearly destroyed their careers with some business or personal mishap. This makes me wonder if the only ones who get a second chance are the rich and famous.

The other strike against a potential employee here in Texas is the unemployment gap, which is akin to “resume’ death”. No employer wants to see a gap in a resume’, whereas before, most understood circumstances beyond our control happen. A loved one becomes ill, you have surgery and need time to recover, you’re unemployed, you decide to go back to school to increase your economic worth – employers don’t want to hear it. If you’re not working, you’re automatically assumed to be lazy, and no one wants a lazy employee. If you take a job at a fast food joint just to pay the bills, then it’s assumed you’re a low caliber employee and not worth hiring back into your field of expertise. What a human resources set up – you can’t win for losing!