Announcement of a Big Bust

Well, friends, your busy Peasant will make my announcement
of something BIG --- but it didn't go the way I had hoped.

Since the start of Spring, I had lost my best customer of my
small business, Friendship House & Yard Service. An 84-
year-old gentleman and longtime friend to whom I had made
available my services for six years was informed by his doctor
that he is losing his eyesight, and it is irreversible. Upon getting
this grim verdict on his visual health, my friend decided to sell
his longtime home in Bayside, a lovely village north of Milwaukee,
and move into a retirement home which offers assisted living.
Anything that I had done for my longtime friend and customer
is now being dome by the house staff and maintenance crew at
the retirement home. Business is flat with my other customers,
and one of them is planning a move to Florida later this year.

So what to do? I joined a local temporary job placement agency
and have been working temporary office jobs. I have successfully
completed an accounting clerical assignment and a data entry
posting, making pretty fair wages at both. Next up was going
to be a long-term (3 months) assignment as a temporary
administrative assistant at the Waukesha office of the Department
of Health and Human Services (!), filling in for the regular
assistant while she is on maternity leave. My trusty placement
called me and asked if she could forward my resume to the HHS
people for consideration; I said absolutely. The job would pay
$14.07 per hour, and that for a start! My agent then e-mailed me
a skill assessment test to take and send back. Did that, got a near-
perfect score. Several days later, after what seemed like an
interminably long wait, my agent then called me to say that they
wanted to interview me; could I go in the following day at
10 AM? I said I'd be happy to. I made it this far, I wasn't going to
turn back! The interview was brief (about 15 minutes) but seemed
fruitful. I was then told that the HHS folks wanted to interview
some more candidates, some of them from my placement agency.
It didn't sound very encouraging, but I resigned myself to playing
the waiting game. After a week and a half, when I had given up
hope on being chosen, I asked my agent if she could find a
short-term assignment for me to profitably fill the time while
awaiting word from HHS. She didn't have anything, but next day she
said she was called by her contact at HHS telling her that they wanted
me after all. What joy! It was a long hiring process but I emerged the
winner! I was next instructed to report to their office and take the
U.S. Government background check, which of course I did ---
well, I reported. Upon being greeted by one of the managers in the
department in which the job was situated I was told sorry, I had to
report to my agent's office in downtown Waukesha for the background
check. I was told that I didn't understand, that I was told specifically
to report to HHS, their office located a 30-minute walk from downtown.
The manager called my agent and got everything straightened out;
I was to go to her office for the check and then wait 24 to 48 hours for
the results and the desired, necessary "all clear" on my info. I said that
if I left right away I could catch a bus that would take me practically to
her doorstep, so off I went. But to my dismay, I saw that very bus go
past the stop where I was headed to catch said bus! I looked at my
bus schedule for that route and saw that I had a 40-minute wait
for the next bus, so I figured that a 30-minute walk would save me
ten minutes, although it would cost me some shoe leather and some
energy.

I arrived at the staffing office of my agent and announced myself
to the receptionist. She bid me take a seat while she in turn informed
the placement coordinator of my arrival. My agent came out with a
long face accompanied by a palid color, the reason being that she
heard from the HHS folks WHILE I WAS WALKING downtown
to her office, notifying her that they were cancelling their job order
--- meaning that they decided that they didn't need my services after
all(?!). Just like that. She had no reason given her for this sudden
change of plans on the client's part. It was like being informed that
I had won a contest and would receive the top prize, then being told
before receipt of said prize that everything was cancelled, scrapped,
tossed out, and that there would be no prize to be awarded.

I told my agent that we were thrown a curve which we never saw
coming and certainly never anticipated, and such was dealing with
the government; Uncle Sam giveth and Uncle Sam taketh away,
blessed be the name of Uncle Sam. If a business did anything like
this it would face opprobrium from the jilted job candidate, his
family and friends, and maybe --- just maybe --- the government
at some level, local, state or federal, would poke its nose into the
matter to ascertain if any illegal doings occurred. But since this is
Uncle Sam at the core of this tale, he will not have to answer to
anyone because he is at the top of the legal food chain; accountable
and answerable to no one, for who is bigger and more powerful than
the federal government?

So your spurned Peasant shall persevere, seeking other opportunities
elsewhere as well as looking for some new clientele for my little
biz. But I shall never vie for another federal government job, even
a temporary one. And Uncle Sam and his advocates wonder why
We the People are wary, cynical, and untrusting of the government.


MEM