If Nothing Else, An MFA in Hand Means Not Selling Penis Pills

I've been thinking (obsessing) this week about jobs.  I'm in my third year of my MFA, which means next year they're going to kick me out (unless I can convince someone to turn this into a five year program?!).  It's not so much that I think the job I get when I leave here is going to be the job I have for the rest of my life, or even that I'm terribly picky about what I do.  I just want to like my job.  That's it.

I love teaching.  I've never loved any other job.  Of course, I've never had any great jobs.  My worst job was selling "all natural male enhancement pills" for Berkley Pharmaceuticals. And the "pharmaceuticals" should not be taken too seriously.  I was in college and I had two kids to support, and they let me set my own hours. It was basically a mail order company that sold "all natural" pills of various kinds.  But the penis pills were the big sellers.  They had these ridiculous commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTa98ixcy9Q), and we knew when the commercials were scheduled to come on, because the phones would start ringing.  Men would call in for the "free" sample.  Free, except you have to pay shipping.  And also, they use the credit card you gave them for the shipping and handling to sign you up for this monthly deal, where if you "donotcancel" you will start getting charged for these penis pills.

The name of them was Enzyte.  All of the "natural" pills had really interesting names.  I discovered soon after I began working there that they came up with the pill names based on the 1-800 number the phone company assigned them.  So, 1-800-Enzyte.  I was on the selling side of the floor.  For some odd reason I was really good at convincing men who had just called in to try this free thing to buy a year's supply for three hundred bucks.  I'm still pretty proud.

I made friends with some of the people who had worked there long enough to get assigned to "customer service" calls.  It turns out many of those calls were angry customers who had not heard or had not been told that they would be signed up for this monthly deal.  Other callers were concerned by side effects such as vomiting, itching, skin discoloration.  Anal bleeding.  I quit before the FBI raided the company for charges of mail fraud.  They were shut down for quite a while.  They're back open now, at least they were the last time I drove past.

I worked at Lowes for a year.  There is no worse place for a woman to work than Lowes.  I met many single, middle aged mothers who were terribly abused by the management.  I went to a meeting once and watched the store manager scream at these women for an hour.  I never really caught what he was screaming about-- it had something to do with someone complaining to corporate.  Lowes (at least the one I was at) is a terrible place to work.

The other, better but still terrible, job I had was substitute teaching middle school and high school.  For those who ask me if they should substitute teach, I say go for it.  But substitute teaching is not teaching.  Subbing is babysitting with horrible handouts.  The teacher would leave a packet on his or her desk of handouts and overhead sheets for the class period.  Students engaged in such serious learning as reading out loud (it turns out not all teenagers can read-- so I had to read to them), and copying answers directly from an overhead to a handout.  The entire time you're trying to break up fights, convince them not to leave, and praying to God that this isn't what they normally do in this class.

From the very first period, the first kids walk in, see you, walk back out in the hallway and scream "Sub! Sub today!" It goes down hill from there.  It's not teaching, it's not fun, but it does pay OK, and you can learn something.  Like how to use your body language to threaten fourteen year old girls into shutting up and using your body itself to break up fights between six foot tall teenage boys.

I have to find a job. But I hold out hope that nothing I can do is worse than things I have done. And, if all else fails, there's PhD programs.  And Post Doc.  I could do this for years.