In The Kitchen With Grammy

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Last week I wrote about childhood memories, specifically, fishing with my dad. In it I mentioned my grandmother taught me how to bake the perfect apple pie. I received fun emails suggesting I give grandma equal time. What an absolutely fabulous idea.

My grandmother was quite a cook. In fact, she cooked for large affluent households for many years. Meals for the well-to-do families as well as banquets and huge social events for them. Simple food prepared perfectly.

She was known to all as Grammy though she only had one grandchild. [Guess who?] Even her friends called her Grammy. My friends called her Grammy. Her own kids called her Grammy. And Grammy could cook. She could have had her own TV show because she was adorable. But this little piece isn’t about her cooking—it’s about her baking. The art of baking. And it is indeed an art and a labor of love. For it is laborious.

I can cook but I’m not going to have my own TV show. I like cooking well enough but now that the kids are grown I don't cook a lot. I’ll pull out our favorite recipes and add one or two new ones when I entertain or during the holidays but they are standard fare type meals. No one has died eating at my table and no one goes home hungry. I guess there’s something to be said for that.

While I enjoy cooking I have never developed a passion for baking. I usually create desserts that don't require flour. Or I purchase something nice from the market. Usually around the holidays grocers bring out special items not seen during the year and they are quite nice and very pretty. Yet, I do bake cookies once in a while during the holidays (if they make it to the oven before I eat the raw dough) and sometimes I’ll make a cake (from scratch, not a box), and the point of this posting: I can make a pie to die for. More specifically, I can make a flaky piecrust. It’s not easy and it takes lots of practice and it also takes training from an expert. I had that in Grammy.

So when I was about seven or eight Grammy decided it was time for me to learn how to make a proper piecrust. As I mentioned last week, she believed a perfect pie would secure for me a perfect husband. [She was wrong.] The training began then and never really stopped. I was “forced” to bake pies my entire childhood. The pies were usually apple, her favorite, but any filling was fine with her. She didn’t care. You could put gravel in a pie and if the piecrust was flaky, people would eat it.  

The most important part of making pie dough is to leave the damn glob alone. By the time she assembled all the ingredients in a bowl it looked like a big pile of flour held together with air. She barely touched it. I thought she was nuts. She encouraged me to work it and stopped me almost immediately after my little fingers barely touched it. “But Grammy, it’s all falling apart.” Yeah, that was the point.

Over the years I’ve watched people make piecrusts and could barely contain my horror. Even on TV shows. I thought they were going to sculpt the dough like clay, maybe make a little statue of their dog. In fact, they beat the poor thing to death (the pie dough, not their dog). No, no, no. (I can hear her still.) Pie dough can be made in food processors I understand but I haven’t tried that. I may but why? Can I improve on perfection? (Probably.)

Recently my daughter and I baked pies and she hadn’t made a piecrust before and was dying to scrunch it all together in a tidy ball, similar to what she did in kindergarten with PlayDough. It took great restraint for me to not pop her over the head with the rolling pin. She didn’t believe me! She cried, “But mom, it’s all falling apart!” History does indeed repeat itself. It was me all over again.

We baked four pies that day. The reason for four pies is it’s such a pain in the you-know-what to make the pie dough and clean up the huge mess it makes that Grammy thought we might as well make as many as possible. For us that day it was four. Two for us and two for a 90-year-old gentleman who had recently lost his wife. His wife had baked for him every day. One day he asked my daughter as she was going for a walk if she knew how to bake a pie. She said yes. Slightly prematurely, I might add.

Her first thought was she would buy a pre-made piecrust. I explained that would work for anyone born after 1950 but if she was making it for a 90-year-old man whose wife baked for him every day it wasn’t going to cut it. She didn’t mind and in fact was eager to learn. [heh heh heh]

So the first thing she couldn’t believe is that the fridge was filled with all our pie ingredients, including my rolling pin. My rolling pin has a feature my Grammy would have loved: it’s a tube that holds ice water or ice cubes. The reason for that is that while handling piecrust everything must be icy cold because if it isn’t the butter (b-u-t-t-e-r, not margarine or shortening) will start to melt and make handling the dough a disaster. You see, and this is so important, butter makes the pie flaky and it will melt in your mouth. Such a pie makes the creator a superstar.

So we sifted and measured the flour and added salt and put Grammy’s bowl (which I have had all these years) back in the fridge. Next we took the butter out of the fridge and cut it into tiny squares with a sharp knife and put the tiny pieces back in the fridge. Next we measured out ice water. We placed it back in the fridge. At this point we were fatigued so we sat down and had coffee.

After arguing about my pie dough methods during our coffee break we pulled the bowl out and put the giant wooden breadboard on our counter. We did not dust it with flour, which would toughen the crust. Instead, we placed eight sheets of waxed paper on the counter, cut to the size of a typical pie tin. We removed the bowl from the fridge then tossed the tiny pieces of butter, individually, on top of the flour. We then GENTLY incorporated the little pieces quickly into the flour but did not mash the flour around the butter. We more or less tossed the little pieces. Then it went back in the fridge.

While the butter cooled down again we both checked our emails and made a couple of phone calls. I considered another cup of coffee but didn’t want coffee jitters during this delicate process. We met back in the kitchen at the appointed time and took the bowl out---again. We poured small quantities of the iced water into the bowl and I then quickly moved the flour, butter, and water around into almost a ball but not quite a ball. It resembled loose flour more than a ball. It was falling apart and could barely hold together. It was perfect. Back in the fridge.

We went our separate ways for about fifteen minutes (it was best) then returned to the kitchen. I placed a piece of the pre-cut waxed paper on the breadboard and retrieved the bowl from the fridge. I dumped a section of the contents of the bowl on the waxed paper then took my hands and softly and gently and quickly pushed the sides all around once or twice and sort of patted the top. My daughter was horrified. By now she would have been halfway to sculpting the Mona Lisa and could not believe I wasn’t going to form this thing into a gooey ball. I went to the fridge and grabbed the rolling pin and she backed off. I guess it looked like I was going to strike her with it. Silly girl.

I placed a sheet of waxed paper on top of my little pile of barely touched flour and gently rolled and pushed, always away from me from the middle out. Soon a pattern developed: roll and push, turn the paper, roll and push, turn the paper.

In a very short period of time we had our first pie shell flattened and EVENLY rolled. The butter did it. It softened as I rolled. We didn’t touch it. We put the rolled sheet back in the fridge along with the bowl. We did this seven more times. Four pies, eight pie shells, tops and bottoms. Each time we finished the mess went back in the fridge.

My daughter was sick of the dough and ready to work on the apples. She selected the apple pie filling from a recipe she found online and it was a nice one. So we both peeled and sliced and seasoned the apples. We then took our first two refrigerated pie shells that had barely been touched by human hands, and peeled off the top piece of waxed paper. It slipped right off. Not sticking. Why? C-o-l-d butter! We inverted the pie pan on top of the dough then turned the pan over quickly and removed the remaining piece of waxed paper. Next we gently aligned the crust in the pan and formed it a little but not too much because we would finish that with the top crust.

Finally, we filled it to overflowing with a nice mound of the seasoned thinly sliced apples in the middle and gently (I’ve used gently a number of times here) placed the apple slices around neatly then plopped the remaining shell on top. Naturally, I have a pie dough crimping tool that I’ve had forever and once the pie is put together the tool runs around the edge and makes a seam and crunches it together and trims it decoratively. We also have a special way to decorate our pie tops: we take a serrated knife and cut slits resembling slices on the top crust so that the pie filling will bubble out a little but also the knife cuts indicate a perfect piece of pie when cutting it to serve. We finished the top with a wash of heavy cream and an egg yoke beaten together then brushed over the top before baking.

We stuck them in the oven and baked them.

By this time it was late afternoon so we switched to wine. We sat at the table waiting for the pies to cook and peeked at them through the glass oven door, as they became visions of beauty. We took them out and placed one pie on each burner on top of my stove. They were breathtaking. I was overcome with emotion at that point remembering years ago doing the same thing with my Grammy. The little 90-year-old recipient my daughter did this for was likewise moved remembering his wife when my daughter presented him with his pies.

That’s the perfect part about making a perfect pie. It’s the history of making something wonderful to share. It’s a labor of love. It’s sort of a lost art. Things that take time and effort are special. And we learn about timing, detail, pushing through a tough project (and not whining), discovering we can do a difficult task, and making those we care about happy. Perfect lessons to learn by simply baking a perfect pie.

[Next week, my son and baking a cake from scratch! True story.]

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

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Fishing With My Dad

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My parents had one child [me] and though my dad never proclaimed he wished he had had a son he nevertheless launched into childrearing as though he did have one. While my dad was teaching me everything most boys learned, my mother and grandmother were teaching me all the things girls were supposed to know. [I can make a melt-in-your-mouth flaky piecrust, which my grandmother believed would secure a fine husband for me.] This was a fortunate childrearing experience because I became a capable adult and always able to take care of myself in a myriad of ways.

When I retired a few years ago I had a list of books to read, movies to watch, and projects to complete. It was a huge list. Recently, I watched a 1992 film based on the novella by Norman Maclean entitled, A River Runs Through It [and Other Stories]. That’s how far behind I am in my “catching up.”

The story takes place in Montana, in the late 1800s, and it’s primarily about boys and their strong father. Mostly, it’s about family dynamics via the art of fly-fishing as metaphor. And fly-fishing is indeed an art. It’s a deeply woven story and the cinematography is breathtaking. I too had a similar experience in childhood fishing with my dad. What we did was far from fly-fishing but we did a little casting, dad made some of our fishing lures, and we had a small boat we used but we also fished from shore. Being involved in an activity of such dedication and importance with a parent provides a child with lifelong power and spirit.

Dad and I built our small 14 foot Chris Craft boat. My contribution was minimal but he always made me feel as though I helped. In fact, when talking to friends he always said “we” built the boat. Everyone thought he was referring to mom or a friend but then he would say, no, it was Sharon. The boat was named after me, Miss Lee. I was small enough to crawl inside the tiny bow and do all sorts of tasks for him which included working with fiberglass and gooey stuff we placed over the fiberglass and other scary substances that make me shudder now.

Dad taught me how to fish and how to cast though again, fly-fishing is not what we did. We did some trolling in the boat and some shore fishing in lakes and I have a memory of unnamed rivers. Though I was proficient at casting I never progressed to the level of fly-fishing. Watching that movie I realized I might have missed something. But I did not miss the father/child experience. So many people I know have almost no recollection of their fathers. Either the father was absent entirely or if he was there he was absent emotionally. My dad was not absent in any way and I was included in everything.

He died at 38 and most of my early memories of him are fading now. Except for fishing and our boat. While out on the lake we bonded and rarely spoke. On shore or in the car we had many conversations but when fishing we were quiet (which is best if the plan is to catch anything) and it was just the almost telepathic communication that I remember. He was a large powerful man and had been in the Navy during WWII. His presence wherever we went caught the attention of everyone we encountered. He was hard to miss.

A few times we took our boat down the Sacramento delta and would fish and cruise for hours and hours. Small taverns dotted the river along the banks and we would stop for gas, bait--and cocktails. Even I had a cocktail when we stopped: Shirley Temples. When we finished our exploration and fishing I had to drive the boat back to the loading ramp (many miles away) because dad had way too many cocktails. I was 8, 9, and 10 when we took these trips. Sometimes he napped on our way back to the ramp and it was often dark by the time we floated to shore. 

Sometimes people would see us and run to help thinking my dad was injured. They were often upset to see he was sleeping and leaving the navigation of a boat to a child—at dusk. But I had been doing it for years and didn’t understand what they were so upset about. When I was closer to 10 I positioned the boat with no help and dad would back the truck up and I’d be in charge of getting the thing on the trailer and hooking it all up. He would then pull up a bit and we would do our departure routine and checked the trailer/boat connections then off we’d go for a two-hour drive home.

We did many other activities together as father and daughter. We enjoyed yard work and at a very young age I was taught how to operate the big clunky power mower. What a scary thing that was. Not like the silent beauties we have today that we plug in. This thing was a gas mower with a pull start and it lifted me off the ground when I tried to start it. It took multiple tries and he would watch me from the garage. I know he wanted to come out and help me but I never asked and eventually the damn thing would cough and sputter and off I’d go. My little dog would run along with me. I was just a little girl tooling down the lawn with my tiny dog and I can’t imagine what he was thinking. Except that I did it and it led to the next challenge and the one after that and the one after that. And I didn’t kill the dog.

Dad did all our house repairs and I helped. I handed him tools and ran and got things he needed so I learned how to do all sorts of things. I knew the names of all the tools and how to use them. Quite often when he repaired something he made me do it. He explained what I needed to do then stood back watching. I would often struggle with the concept of the project but didn’t ask for help. It wasn’t that I couldn’t but I wanted to figure it out for myself. After countless times I would usually get my “ah hah” moment and the thing would be done. Sometimes I’d be met with a lack of strength to untwist something or tighten something. Then I’d ask him to finish and he did. I was, after all, a small child. (I still have that problem when working on projects. I just don’t have the upper body strength for some tasks.)

He was also an amazing cook and afraid of nothing in the kitchen. He was so good he eventually opened a small restaurant. People came from far away to sample his food. Many of these people we met while camping and he cooked for all the campers and made lifelong friends out of them. When we camped we had coolers and boxes loaded with food that he would prepare all week and we were the most popular campsite around. I was his helper but I was also given my own food prep tasks. I rarely needed help because dad, my mom, and grandma had worked with me in the kitchen and trained me from early childhood.

Sometimes while he prepared food at our campsite he would ask me to run to the boat and secure it for the evening. Off I’d go by myself to the boat area and do all the things to our boat that all the other “men” were doing to theirs. Again, I was under 12 when we took these trips. There are so many things about that experience that amazes me now (being alone at dusk far away from the campsite with lots of drunk men is only one memory) but I have to say they all knew my dad and it was safer for them to leave me alone.

That’s what parenting is all about. It wasn’t loading the boat onto the boat trailer and driving it for miles in semi darkness. It wasn’t struggling with the operation of the power mower, or any of the actual tasks. Though that certainly has provided me with a lifelong ability to take care of myself. It was actually about excellent parenting. He wasn’t a perfect man but he was a perfect father.

An amazing thing happened in our family however. My dad passed away at 38 from an illness brought on by his poor lifestyle choices (too much food, smoking, and alcohol) and inadequate medical attention. Many years after his passing my mom met a wonderful man. He was unlike my dad in almost all ways except he was an outstanding cook and he knew how to handle tools and could cook anything and repair or create anything. My mom was a sly woman. Though I was an adult when they met and married he was there for my kids as a strong male figure. He loved to fish and bought my son a fishing rod and reel. He talked to the kids and explained things to them and they grew up learning how to take care of themselves. Both dads loved to read and my stepdad was so fond of J.R.R. Tolkien he had memorized huge passages of The Lord of the Rings.

Watching A River Runs Through It brought back so many wonderful memories and once again I appreciate how lucky I was to have two strong dads in my life. I know my first dad would be very happy to know about my second dad. He wouldn’t have wanted me to miss any steps in my training.  

[Note: My grandmother was wrong.]

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

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The Great Pretender

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I learned early in life that it was safer to pretend to like something than to fight the crowd. I lived a life of pretended behaviors well into adulthood. Almost overnight years ago something hit me and I haven’t pretended a single behavior since. I no longer care about fitting in and being with the in-crowd. In fact, I don't like the in-crowd and never did. I’m sorry it took so long but it’s so good to not care anymore.

It started in grade school. A group of my friends decided to start bowling. We didn’t belong to a league but we had a bowling alley close to where we all lived and we could get there easily and bowling was cheap and we loved it. It turned out that I was good at bowling. Too good. So good that the boys stopped being nice to me. I was heartbroken.

I remember coming home one Saturday and crying to my mom that the boys were being mean to me because I won. Mom scrunched up her face and we had a talk. It was, she explained, not a good idea to be better than the boys. At anything. Though I could tell she didn’t like sharing this information I knew she was telling me this for my own good. I had to lose when playing games with boys. I couldn’t believe my ears. I recall some of the explanation was about fragile egos and boys got embarrassed in front of their friends if a girl beat them, and that the boys wouldn’t like me if I continued to win and that the bottom line was, I had to start losing. And that included activities at school.

It took me a while to process this information but I started deliberately losing at all activities and not just bowling and suddenly I was their friend again. What a lesson to learn and to learn it so young. Pretending in other areas of my life started at that point and lasted for years. It also closed down my trust senses and led to being suspicious of everyone’s behaviors. Were they pretending too?

There were lots of things I didn’t like to do as I grew up but my friends did so I pretended to like the same things. I saw other kids being dumped by their little cliques and I knew it was because they didn’t like the same things their friends did. I suppose I could have taken them aside and explained “pretending” to them but I didn’t. It was every man for himself. Or woman as the case may be. Pretending had become a way of life for me.

In the 8^th grade my friends all wanted to be junior high school cheerleaders. I did not. They began practicing for tryouts and nagging me to practice and I dreaded the entire concept. First, I hated sports and second, I didn’t like the current group of cheerleaders. But my friends wore me down so I practiced. As it turned out, my mom was a cheerleader in a large high school and she taught me all her old cheers. They were adorable so at tryouts I was unique with the old cheers and made the squad. None of my friends did.

So there I was with a group of girls I didn’t like cheering for sports that I didn’t like. I was miserable but I had a commitment for the year so I was stuck. I liked the cute outfits we wore and that was it. Fortune came my way and my family had to move north in the middle of the 8^th grade and though I was very sad to leave my home of many years I was thrilled to leave cheerleading.

When I arrived at my new school it was too late for cheerleading tryouts. Hooray! Unfortunately, a teacher felt bad I had to leave cheerleading at my old school and told me she could probably get me on the squad and I politely told her I was way too busy with a new school to add cheerleading to my life. Whew!

When we got to high school there was a huge popular clique of girls actively involved in cheerleading and I was relieved that not a single soul suggested I try out. Had I tried out I am positive I would not have made it because I was in a new world of pretending and my skills were not honed to this level of pretended behaviors.

Throughout my teen years I found I pretended more than I ever had before in my life. I found myself doing countless things that I hated all to fit in. Prior to high school my grandma made all my clothes but in high school that was forbidden. I had to wear purchased clothing and clothing of a certain style. Sometimes I told my mom what we were doing socially and that I hated it and she said to just say I wasn’t allowed to go. Fantastic. My mom was helping me pretend. Any time I didn’t want to go somewhere and do something I hated I lied and said I was grounded. Mom backed me up if anyone called. It was fabulous. But it was more pretending. Pretending to be grounded. Everyone must have thought I was the worst child because I was always grounded.

As a young adult this pretending to enjoy certain activities continued and I often found myself in miserable situations. Parties, nightclubs, etc. A couple of times I found myself in scary situations and pretended I wasn’t scared. Sometimes I found myself doing something I hated when I could have done something with other friends that I would have enjoyed. In the ‘60s there were a multitude of decisions about behaviors that overwhelmed me and if I even slightly resisted I was met with a barrage of comments on my lack of “coolness.” It was heavy stuff. I usually gave in. I have no regrets because it was my learning curve. The more miserable I became then the more determined I became years later to never be miserable again.

At some point, about the time of my divorce, I had had enough pretending. Especially pretending to be married. Once the marriage officially ended I started removing myself from other bad relationships. Like marriage, some friendships do not evolve and some friends can bring us down and they never ever try to improve so the relationship consists of one person constantly trying to keep the relationship going while the other just wallows in their little world of self pity. Dumped them all.

Pretending to enjoy activities isn’t the only pretend behaviors some of us get trapped into. Another way to “fit in” is to alter one’s beliefs to match those of our peers. Or if we don't outwardly declare our beliefs then we remain silent. Sometimes it’s innocent like pretending to eat at a potluck only to ditch the food at the first possible opportunity. I know someone who does that to this day. I love potlucks but I have to say that after listening to her stories I am cautious about what I eat now and always find out who made what!

Politics, religion, relationship opinions, current events, all hot topics and some are best left alone. But when people discuss these hot button topics I once clammed up and just did a lot of nodding. No longer. Now not only do I comment I’m often the one leading the discussion/debate. Guess what? I have opinions! Who’d have guessed? Guess what else? Many people don't like my opinions because they are “different.” I don't like war, killing our environment, Congress, hunting, corporations, foreign control of our finances, religious fanaticism, any fanaticism, people who pontificate on topics they know nothing about, and so on. Huge list.

After dumping the bad relationships in my life I was careful to not invite new ones into my life that I hadn’t studied. It wasn’t as easy because as we evolve in life we change locations and lifestyles with husbands, without husbands, with kids, etc., and relationship dynamics pop up and we can easily be trapped into groups we don't like. I didn’t! Amazingly I started living my life more on my own with just a few close friends and I no longer sought the wider world for companionship. In fact, I preferred being home alone on a Saturday rather than going out with a group of women pathetically trying to connect with guys at bars. I always hated the bar scene and always went kicking and screaming and finally didn’t go at all! Wow.

Then there are the parent groups we are involved in when we have kids. Most parents I met in those groups were not people I admired in the general world of parenting. I stopped participating. I still participated as a parent at events but no longer with the groups. I found most of them unbelievably shallow and competitive and I didn’t like most of their kids. Why hang out with them?

Cliques in the work place are also another area of pick and choose. Sometimes it’s important to be seen or not seen with certain people within an organization if we are to have any hope at all for advancement. B.S. I had a tight little group of pals that I have to this very day and I’m retired yet we are still buddies. I never bought into the clique thing at work. I was always seen with weird offbeat employees. (You KNOW who you are.)

With all this I have come to like alone time. I love just being on my own doing exactly what I want to do and not what someone else likes to do. There are many things I like that others do not which is why I had to pretend for so many years. People with my interests are not as easily found. I don't like sports, but I love games, don't like drinking, love music, don't like TV, love movies but don't like going to the movies (rude crowds), don't like crowds, like small groups, don't like big clubs, like little restaurants, like naturalist vacations, not big resorts, like sightseeing, don't like vacation shopping, don't like any shopping, love animals, don't eat flesh, don't like fashionista mentality, like jeans and t-shirts, don't like most religions, don't like romantic relationships, love my family and friends, don't like “trends,” but love technology, don't like celebrity gossip (don't care), believe in live and let live, and the list goes on.

As Kermit says, it isn’t easy being green.

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]

Looking for a job? Only perfect people need apply!

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There are hundreds (thousands?) of articles and reports explaining how to look for work with an emphasis on our current economy. Lots of people are out of work. People who worked all their lives are out of work. People who provided for families and had boats and went camping and skiing and people who had Sunday BBQs and sent their kids to college are out of work. Many people are out of work for the first time in their lives at a time when they thought they were sailing effortlessly to retirement. Retired folks are trying to re-enter the work force in greater numbers than ever to cover medical costs not covered by their inadequate insurance supplements.

But instead of employers making it easier to find work, quality life sustaining work and not jiggling a sign on a street corner, it is in fact harder than ever to find a job. Employers want perfect candidates and they can afford to be picky because it’s a buyer’s market (to borrow a phrase from the real estate world).

Prospective employers have become, in effect, invasive secret spy level “agents” into the private lives of their applicants/new hires. They are so invasive that Congress is investigating hiring practices and policies. But Congress moves slowly unless they are coming up with new taxes (then they move with lightening speed). In the meantime we are stuck with over-the-top snooping into our private lives when we try to find a job along with general mistreatment of applicants that is at an all time high. If we aren’t perfect we are out faster than a skunk at a wedding.

Who lives a squeaky clean financial life? (Or for that matter, who lives a squeaky-clean life, period?) Especially today. People who have led squeaky clean financial lives now find themselves on the brink and some over the brink of financial ruin. And they aren’t getting any younger. Budgeting and planning that worked a decade ago no longer works today so employers find those applicants unattractive because their credit scores don’t hit the 700s-at a minimum.

Have a health condition? You’re out. Clothes out of date? You’re out. Can’t afford to upgrade your skills or go back to school because you don't have a job to pay for it? You’re out. Are you too old (over 35)? You should have a better job by that age. Why are you applying for this job now? You’re out. Are you too fat? You’re out. Do you smoke? You’re out. Are you gay? You’re out. Are you anything but a 35-year-old tall blond and handsome Harvard educated male wearing a designer suit? You’re out. Are you a woman competing for a position mostly held by men? You’re out. Did you jump out of a window on top of a parked car in college and got arrested? You’re out. Did you arrive one minute late to your interview because your cat died that morning? You’re out. Did you file bankruptcy because you had the divorce from hell? You’re out. Do you have kids? You’re out. Did you default on your mortgage because the banking industry is filled with criminals? You’re out. Are you having an affair with one of the managers? No? You’re out. Will you have an affair with one of the managers? No? You’re out. Does you daddy work there? No? You’re out. Do you have a job? No? You can’t get a job if you don't have a job, silly. You’re out. Do you breed and raise dogs and treat them horrifically then torture them and murder them and operate illegal gambling and make lots of money on that endeavor even though you are already rich from your football career? No? You’re out.

“But,” you say, “employers can’t do that. It’s against the law!” Oh, that’s hilarious. They can do whatever they want to do and they do. They manipulate and outwit regulations with wild abandon. Because I’ve been in and around the business I have been privy to all sorts of shenanigans that employers pull. Some are just better at it than others. And often when the candidates are pulled into the interview selection process the shenanigans reach an outrageous level. There are several agencies to protect us from these predator practices but they have a tough time proving wrongdoing. In order for the various government agencies that are out there to protect employees to declare a finding in the applicant’s favor, the hiring company had to have placed fresh elephant dung on the applicant’s chair prior to the interview. Stale elephant dung would not be a negative factor.

I’ve heard candidates raked over the coals after their interviews because the blouse they selected didn’t match the over all color scheme of their outfit (shows the applicant’s poor judgment). That their shoes weren’t appropriate for the ensemble (shows lack of coordination). That they had ugly hair (shows they have image issues). Years ago before computers candidates were eliminated for not typing their applications on a typewriter even though their handwriting was impeccable and many people did not have access to typewriters and the applications said “type or print.” (Yes, that’s really true for you youngsters out there.)

I have had strong opinions (no kidding) about how people are hired and fired all of my life. I worked in “Human Resources” when it was called “Personnel.” I have family and friends who currently work in Human Resources. I have witnessed the most bizarre hirings and firings in almost all of my jobs. One supervisor spoke to God at night then came in the next morning and fired people explaining to them that God told her to do that. To argue with her meant one didn’t believe in God.

One employee in another organization was fired because she was a little slow in getting her work done. It was a customer service position and she was slow getting her paperwork done because she spent “too much time helping customers.” Her job title was “Customer Service Representative.” Huh?

When I was a teen I was “fired” from a part-time after school job because I was too friendly. The owner of the business told me I was too friendly. Too friendly. I repeat, too friendly. I was 16 working after school and I was too friendly. I wasn’t late, I wasn’t dirty, I wasn’t lazy, I wasn’t stupid. I had my own car, which I paid for by working in the pear sheds during summers. I was too friendly.

One position I applied for invited hundreds of applicants to an exam. Hundreds. They planned on filling five vacancies (and I learned later they had secretly pre-selected three of the candidates). How absurd to disrupt hundreds of lives when only five vacancies (two actually) would be filled. Their reasoning, and the reasoning of most Human Resources recruitments is: finding the best candidate. But it’s actually for government compliance/statistical reporting so that the employer will look like it’s doing its job for the community.

It is disingenuous to recruit for the best candidate because there is no employment norm for a best candidate. Desirable candidates run the gamut and are treated horrendously if one tiny discrepancy appears. And often these candidates are screened out of nowhere jobs that aren’t worthy of their attention to begin with but they are desperate so they apply.

In the instance a couple of paragraphs ago, rather than taking the time to do a proper application screening someone must have just tossed all the applications in a pile and called them to come in for the testing. While awaiting the proctor’s instructions a few of us chatted. Many were stunned they had been invited to take the test. They applied only because they were out of work and applying for anything and everything. The applicants in my section mostly were under-qualified yet here they were wasting their time to take a three-hour test for a job they were not going to get so that the organization could comply with statistical reporting to some ineffective government entity.

If the candidate manages to get to the interview level and hopefully an offer is made, they can then expect their credit to be checked, their criminal record to be scrutinized (including the aforementioned jumping from window/landing on car), intrusive and invasive medical history and exam, rent history and/or whether or not they rent or own (some candidates are screened out if they do not own a home-the reasoning being if they haven’t purchased a home by a certain age they are not successful enough for employment with the company.) Absurd.

One morning as I prepared to leave my house for a job interview (a final interview for a job I was positive I would get) a family disaster occurred. I had just gotten out of the shower when my kids told me something was wrong with our dog. We rushed him to the vet where we had to leave him for testing and though I was on the verge of a meltdown I left him in the capable hands of my vet and headed to the interview. My dog was heavy and I had a hard time getting him in the car and because of the emergency I hadn’t had time to put makeup on or dry my hair.

When I arrived at the company I slapped on a little lipstick and pushed my damp hair around and ran inside. I wasn’t late, though to this day I can’t believe it. The woman I had been working with for weeks came out and shook my hand with a great big smile and I then watched her expression slowly change to one of horror. She actually looked me up and down. I was wearing a beautiful dress, purchased for the occasion, nylons, the appropriate shoes and bag, but I had wet impacted dog fur all over the front of my dress and-—I smelled like a dog. He was a hound type dog and he usually had that hound odor (eau de parfum de chien) and it seemed to increase perhaps because of his discomfort. It suddenly occurred to me that I must have looked even worse than I thought. Let alone the smell.

I immediately went into damage control and told her the story of my dog and our trip to the vet with crying kids (and crying me) and though I thought I was speaking intelligently I now know it was absolute gibberish. As we walked through the office (where I would be working) all the employees looked up at us with happy expectant smiles because they knew I was “the one” soon to join them in their little work family. However, I was not introduced to any of them and at one point the woman took my elbow and quickly directed me to an office and I was told to sit down. She shut the door behind her.

Soon she returned with the department manager. For some reason I felt compelled to once again explain my morning and I saw the manager look me up and down and she had a huge fake smile on her face and her eyes looked like she had just returned from the cosmetic surgeon and he had botched the procedure and her eyes would never close again. [Note: I did not get the job.]

So the three of us sat there and I’ll give them credit because they went through what I think was a normal interview. Neither of them mentioned my morning or my appearance and I had hoped they would. I wanted to explain more about how I felt about dogs (really, that’s where my head was) and the kids and the divorce which is why I desperately needed a job and so many other things but they charged through the interview like a speeding train.

I left the office and went home and stood in front of my full-length mirror and for the first time was able to see how I looked. It was indescribable. I changed and went back to the vet. (My dog had a serious spine disorder similar to a slipped disc in a human and though he recovered from that episode in a few weeks he had to be put down. I explain this here only because I have to explain to everyone the entire story about that day and that morning. As I dropped him off at the vet I knew it was bad and I knew we were losing him. All of this was in my head that day during my interview. I hate those women.)

The point is, they would never behave that way toward a neighbor, a friend, a family member, but I was a job candidate and all is fair in love and war when in that arena. I’ve heard horror stories worse than mine about candidates heading to an interview only to get into a car accident but still arriving at the interview, late, with a little blood on their clothing, and told they were not going to be allowed to interview because they were late. Again, it’s all about the best candidate. If someone is late to an interview are they not the best candidate because they have impacted wet dog fur on their dress from a morning from hell? I got there; didn’t I? (And I wasn’t late.) The accident applicant got there late with a little blood from his injuries but he got there; right?

When did employers get all this power? In the last few decades it happened when they started outsourcing to other countries and didn’t need us anymore. Before outsourcing it happened because employment was for centuries a form of indentured servitude. Though it pales in comparison to actual slavery, employers formed their methods based on slavery standards and threw a little money at us instead of room and board.

For every person happily employed with an adequate salary and benefits, there are millions who are not. We need to tell Congress to hurry up. I think a properly employed citizenry is the key to all our problems. We’re a scrappy hard-working bunch in the U.S. and deserve respect from our employers not condemnation because we wore one brown shoe and one blue shoe to an interview. (That happened to a friend. She didn’t get the job.)

Oh, by the way, Michael Vick has a great job. How about you?

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]