Chapter One
Maddie
My friendsand I gathered for our weekly get-together at Cat's apartment to drink wine and try to forget our troubles. Inevitably, though, reality snuck into our fun, and the fact that we all needed new jobs became the focus.
I poured myself another glass of wine and announced something I’d been thinking about for a while. "I think we need to strike out on our own. We have skills. We all do. So why not?" I said to my friends, Tia, Cat, and Emma, all four of us unemployed and not liking it one bit.
"Strike out on our own? What does that mean? And what kind of skills do we have?" Tia asked. She'd always been the timid one of the bunch, but I needed her to get on board with this plan if it was going to work.
Before I could answer her, Cat piped up with an even better answer than I had to give her. "Lots of things! I, for one, am a damn good driver. That doesn't seem like a big thing, but to people who can't or don't want to drive, I'm like some kind of magical being. You just have to think about what you do well. Maddie, you may not be a chef, but you're a damn good cook. And Tia, you're great with kids. Do you know how many people in this world have kids and need help with them? Millions. Maybe even billions."
She turned toward Emma and smiled. "And you're as organized as they come. Do you know how many people aren't in this world? People seek out that skill, as well as the ones the rest of us have."
"Exactly!" I said, jumping up from my chair as Cat's enthusiasm overcame me. "We just need to market ourselves. I say we start posting around on any site that will let us that we're here and ready to work. I know none of us have college degrees, but we can do this. We're young and full of ingenuity. That's a winning combination, in my opinion. What's the alternative? Low paying jobs don't pay the bills. I think we can all agree that’s not going to work."
Although Emma and Tia didn't look completely convinced by my idea, they nodded their heads in agreement with Cat and me. This could work. I knew it. It had to because at the rate we were going, the four of us would be in real dire straits if it didn't.
Cat stood to join me. "Okay, then that's what we'll do. We'll spend the day writing up ads we can post so the people who need our skills out there can find us. Time to sell ourselves, ladies!"
Emma's eyes opened wide. "Sell ourselves? What are we talking about here, Cat?"
I quickly moved to calm her. "Don't worry. We're not saying we're going to sell our bodies. What Cat means is we're going to create killer write-ups so people will be getting in line to pay us to do what we do especially well. Like with you, for example, your write up has to say how organized you are and how efficient you are as a worker. People who lack the ability to get their shit together love those kinds of things. Trust me. I'm one of them, and just hearing someone is organized and efficient makes them instantly impressive to people like me. Trust me, Em. This is going to work."
She took a deep breath and looked over at Cat and Tia. "Okay. Let's do this!"
Four hours later, we'd finished off the last three bottles of wine Cat had on hand and each of us had our ads. We'd written and rewritten them a dozen times, but finally, we liked what we had down on paper.
Each one of us had our skills highlighted, what tasks we could perform, and any other special things of interest we wanted potential employers to know. I made sure to include that I could be a live-in cook, if necessary, since I had no problem living somewhere else for a while.
"Remember, when you're posting on whatever site you're on, be sure to check the Help Wanted section too. Your perfect employer-employee match might be lurking in there."
Cat added, "And if you're unsure what to say in reply to one of them, just type out what we wrote today. Now let's go post and get ourselves some good paying jobs!"
Two daysof working every site that would take posts like ours had produced nothing for me, but I didn't lose hope. Sometimes these things took a little while. I just hoped they didn't take too long because I needed money and I needed it soon. My friend Candy had been nice enough to let me crash at her place for the past few months, but I knew that couldn't last forever.
Scrolling through the Help Wanted ads on the site I felt sure would produce some results, I came upon something I thought might be perfect for me.
Cook Needed for Private Residence
Position will require person to live on premises and work irregular hours. Additional requirements: ability to work well with others, clean criminal background, clean drug test, flexibility, interest in learning new things. Position will be rewarding to the right candidate.
I had experience in my uncle's restaurant all through high school doing everything from dishwashing to waitressing and then cooking on the line, and I had the ability to live wherever I wanted to and strange work hours didn't bother me in the least. I'd always been told I worked well with others, and I was as clean as they came. Plus, I possessed an urge to learn new things, so it felt like the ad had been written just for me.
But did this would-be employer want someone with real training in cooking? I had the experience, but I was no professional chef. I'd worked at my uncle's restaurant all through school, but college had never appealed to me, so I instead decided to enter the workplace and make some money. The problem was I lived in what may have been the smallest town in the whole country, so there wasn't a lot of money to be made in Castine, Maine, a place that could boast having some very nice people and little else.
My uncle had offered to let me continue to work at his restaurant, but I wanted to try new things and see new places, so I set out on my own and headed toward New York City to visit my friend Candy, a childhood friend who had left our hometown the minute they handed her the diploma.
While I’d had some fun, after two months all my money was gone. I’d had some luck in finding odd jobs, but minimum wage paydays didn’t go very far, so it was time to find a job that would pay more.
I looked at the bottom of the job listing and saw a name. DeVille Staffing. Below that was a number and a website address to apply for the job. My heart raced at the thought that I might have found something so quickly. My hands shaking, I clicked on the link and copied what my friends and I had written to sell me to potential employers.
Then I sent it off to DeVille Staffing and sat back, excited by the possibility that I'd soon hear something. I couldn’t give up searching, though. I had a good feeling about that position, but I couldn’t sit back and wait for them. My dwindling bank account demanded I keep looking.
But twenty minutes later, my phone let me know I had an email, and there in my inbox was a request to come in for an interview that afternoon at two. I quickly emailed back to say I’d be there, and then realized I had no idea of where DeVille Staffing was located.
No matter. I’d search for that later. First, I had to text my friends about my good luck.
I found something in the Help Wanted section of EmployWe this morning. I just got an email from a staffing agency to come in for an interview this afternoon. I’ll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck!